


Sold My Soul Like A Pocket Knife

by perkynurples



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perkynurples/pseuds/perkynurples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is Jesse's birthday. The concept of simple gifts eludes Hanzo. Featuring reclusive guitar playing, unhealthy midnight snacks, expressionless brotherly teasing, and one sentimental fog. <i>I wrote this at the beginning of my experience with the Overwatch fandom, and it no longer corresponds with my headcanons and opinions. I'm leaving it up for the lovely response it's gotten, and might end up reworking it one day to suit my idea better, but for now, I invite all of you to check out my other works for the fandom. Thank you for understanding :)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay folks, this is my very first venture into the Overwatch fandom. Don't quite know yet how this turned from a warm-up oneshot into something with... potential, but here we are. The rating definitely WILL change, and so will the roster of appearing characters. I've picked up quite a few headcanons from the fandom, particularly loved the one about Gabe actually being something called a utility fog, or a cloud of sentient nanobots. Extra cool. Anyway here it is, a silly little thing to familiarize myself with the characters before I move onto more ambitious... things, and if you enjoyed, don't hesitate to find me at my [Tumblr!](http://bilboo.tumblr.com)

He is now quite convinced he might die here - embarking on quests alone has always been his style, his trademark, his joy, but even he must admit that infiltrating this particular lair might have been a better idea with someone backing him up, the comforting voice of a teammate in his ear, _any_ kind of exit strategy.

But no, this... this embarrassing side mission, this fool’s errand, is to be carried out on his own, or not at all. No one must know. Everyone _will_ know, if he succeeds, but that is a concern for a later time. If that time comes at all.

He drops down yet another maintenance shaft nigh effortlessly, his prosthetics weathering the impact, and takes note of his surroundings only briefly - it is his instinct that must show him the way now. It is only a matter of time before they discover his presence.

He made a fair attempt at scouting, familiarizing himself with the building, but it was difficult without employing the help of Athena - some would accuse him of being distrustful of the Overwatch AI, and much as he would like to thwart those accusations, the truth is too awkward to be revealed just yet. He simply doesn’t wish anyone from Overwatch to assist, or even just know he’s here.

Genji would call him reckless, and probably laugh at him as well, and he would be right to do so. _A fool’s errand._ Fitting.

Storm Bow at the ready, Hanzo speeds towards his uncertain goal, through the foreign corridors of an unfamiliar building, daring to hope for the best yet, and trying his damnedest not to think of a pair of melancholic eyes, and the sad smirk of the biggest fool of them all.

 

Not that he’s been paying any special attention - not ever, not to him - but if McCree-san has one defining quality, it’s filling every space he’s in with his overbearing, larger than life presence, thus making it impossible not to take note. Hanzo started glimpsing it a while back, some time after he himself had managed to somewhat integrate Overwatch’s floundering and busy schedule into his own lifestyle, his mind at ease once again, as much ease as there was to go around.

McCree was always in motion - when they sparred together, when they talked, when he prepared them meals late into the night after everyone else had gone to sleep, Hanzo and him apparently sharing the burden of both insomnia and the peculiar liking for midnight snacks. McCree never stopped - his hands always seemed to need to hold onto something, some part of him always moving, like an inner tick tock rhythm, impossible to stop or control.

During idle time in missions, he would hum to himself, presumably to set his mind at ease, and when they all sat down together to endure yet another one of Winston’s plentiful briefings, he would procure a coin from god knows where and flick it in between his fingers, one knuckle to another, in a manner that Hanzo found particularly mesmerizing, and even more obviously annoying.

“Ah, yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” the fool would grin apologetically when confronted his restlessness, Hanzo only bringing it up in private of course, “got a bit of a fidget in my hands. Always gotta fiddle with somethin’. Feet always gotta be walkin’. Don’t like staying in one place.”

“Yes,” Hanzo had said, watching him flick his lighter open and close, open and close again, “I’ve noticed. Perhaps I could teach you to meditate?”

“Hah!” Even his laugh was too boisterous, all over the place. “Can’t see that you could, Shimada-san, no offence to your mentorin’. My meditation’s always been a good smoke and a nap when it’s least convenient.”

“Yes,” Hanzo had repeated, “I’ve noticed that, too.” And then, propelled by some strange sense of curiosity: “Isn’t there something else you find relaxes you? An exercise? Perhaps a musical instrument.”

He remembers it as vividly as if it had just happened, the way his eyes had gleamed from underneath the shadow of the brim of his pompous hat.

“Why? Do you play an instrument?” A sudden curiosity in his voice.

“Not anymore. I used to play the shamisen.”

“The, uhh... whatisson, now?”

Scoffing has always been so easy around him, and even easier to mistake for laughter.

“ _Shamisen._ It’s a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. You?”

“What about me?”

“Do you play an instrument.”

Trying to get him to really talk, almost a physical ordeal. Hanzo hasn’t figured out yet why he _does_ keep trying.

“Uhh. Kinda like you - not anymore. Had a guitar.” A tang of emotion in his voice. “Got taken away from me.”

Hanzo had watched as the gunslinger took his hat off, raking his fingers through his bird’s nest of a hair, then proceeded to twist the rim of the hat between his fingers, as if searching for imperfections. He remembers thinking it odd, and a little bit sad.

“Where is it now?” he had asked.

And there it was, the smirk, the sad eyes, the mirage of a man Hanzo had never thought to end up sympathizing with.

 

“You know, it’s going to be Jesse’s birthday soon,” Genji had mentioned the very next day.

“Why would that be of interest to me?” Hanzo had snapped back, perhaps a bit too harshly, and though he would never see his brother’s smile again, he’d damn well _sense_ it.

“You’re with us now,” Genji had said, “at Overwatch, we like to celebrate one another. Have fun. Be nice. That kind of thing.”

_That kind of thing._

Hanzo doesn’t think he remembers ever being intentionally nice to _anyone._ Does putting his life at risk for some intel and the fleeting possibility of a guitar count? He’s new to this.

Anyhow, he’s here now, and his choices are either getting caught and ripped to shreds by Talon, or returning home victorious and weathering his brother’s endless teasing, and whatever might come of Jesse McCree getting a birthday present.

Neither option fills him with much confidence.

 

This particular compound is frustratingly labyrinthine, and Hanzo marvels at getting this far without accidentally running into a squad of guards, or at least a cleverly placed security system. It begs the question, is someone _allowing him_ to get this far?

The ventilation system he is crawling through right now is at least ten degrees hotter than the corridors themselves, and he breathes through his nose and makes regular stops to maintain his composure. Below him, grid after grid reveals room after dark room, some labs, some storage closets - he maps them all, memorizes the layout as best he can, and moves forward.

It’s a feeble hope, but perhaps he might suffer marginally less embarrassment if he brings back some actual intel.

Then a glimpse of light - he freezes. Below him, a room is lit with a warmer glow, like an old light bulb, like fire, and he hears someone talking, indistinct, maybe a radio playing? Must be. Yes, there is a melody to it.

He listens with bated breath.

_I had a dream, so did you_

_Life was warm and love was true..._

Odd. A tinge of nostalgia in the heart of something so vicious, so cold, distant.

He sees the smoke first, black, swirling slow, as if it has a mind of its own - he remembers the briefing videos. Closes his eyes, ducks deeper back into the shadows. Listens, for footsteps he knows he won’t be able to hear.

The words _utility fog_ glare at the back of his mind like a warning sign, big block red letters. _He could be anywhere right now. He could be right behind you..._

Then a sound of something opening, perhaps a wardrobe - no metal, nothing mechanic, just a clack of wood. The song is a persistent, itching drone at the back of Hanzo’s mind as he attempts to steady his breathing, and his heartbeat along with it. He can usually sense a target, but all that he sees through the slits of the ventilation grid, are moving shadows and a swaying light.

“ _Almost had you there._ ”

The voice is heavily augmented by tech, no intonation to it, a dull, chilling robotic clang, and Hanzo is reminded of hearing it for the first time, out there on a barely familiar battlefield, the horror in McCree’s eyes by his side, the spray of bullets, time seemingly slowing down only to explode in a cacophony of sounds a second later.

He is familiar with the history of Overwatch only through tales and information scraped together by sifting through differently classified files, but already he is affirmed in his horrible belief, that these days, nothing is impossible.

Old soldiers survive, bodies get turned into metal, into sentient dust, souls into algorithms.

 _There must be a way to kill it,_ he had suggested, and he won’t be forgetting McCree’s harrowed glare any time soon.

 _Would be easier if it_ were _an it,_ he had replied, _how do you kill a dead man?_

The smoke is gone. The song ends, some intangible tension disappears. The room below him is empty. He waits a bit longer for good measure, before testing the grid, unscrewing it rather easily - this is not the real core of the compound, nothing crucial is kept here. At least, nothing crucial in the big picture - _personal,_ now that is another matter entirely.

He drops down into the now abandoned room soundlessly, looking around, eyes adjusting to the dark, penetrated and lessened only by the glow of several electronic devices, and the light coming in from the corridor through a narrow window in the door.

This is a haphazard gathering of all sorts of paraphernalia, he quickly realizes - it’s as if someone had hurriedly strewn together a bunch of shelves and filled them with mismatched memorabilia and boxes containing who knows what. There is an old couch by the far wall, and an overflowing bookcase. Pictures and photographs on the wall, and frames sitting propped up on the floor, people he doesn’t recognize, and people he wishes he didn’t.

It’s absurd - like someone had made every attempt to preserve something long gone, created and locked away a piece of the past, revisited only briefly, never to be dragged out to the light. Hanzo makes a mental note not to mention this in his report, though he can’t say why. He feels like he’s intruding, which, of course, is ridiculous, because that’s what he _came here to do,_ but it’s deeper than that - he isn’t supposed to be here, isn’t supposed to see this. Nobody is.

This is a weakness, a blind spot, manifested in mathoms and... souvenirs. So very odd.

And there it is - he recognizes the shape of it immediately, sleek curves hidden in a corner and underneath a gossamer cloth. _At least he knows to take care of an instrument._ Hah.

Hanzo reaches for it, soft fabric in between his fingers, and when he tugs it off, the world goes to hell in a handbasket, Hanzo thinks Jesse would say.

 

It is a miracle, a coincidence, he makes it out at all - and the blasted guitar along with him, carelessly gripped by the neck as he narrowly escapes death trap after death trap, both of them, instrument and man, almost getting burnt to a crisp several times. This is what toying with Talon gets you, but Hanzo can’t help but feel like it’s still mostly for show - honestly, if they wanted him dead, he would be dead right now. Someone is _having fun,_ watching him escape. He can almost feel the eyes on him. There is laughter at the back of his mind.

He first touches the strings when he’s laying low, waiting for the heat to die down - justifies it with the need to check the instrument, see if it has been in any way changed, bugged, turned into a bomb, whatnot... Anything is possible with Talon. But no.

It’s almost disappointing, to be frank - the wood around the sound hole is worn, almost threadbare, from excessive use, and same applies to the fretboard. The strings don’t produce sound of any particular quality to Hanzo’s ears, but then... He shouldn’t be the one playing it. How long has it been since the fool has touched it? He has a _metallic_ hand for crying out loud! It’s a wonder the neck is still in one piece.

He finds the initials _J.D.M._ carved into the bindings, next faded Route 66 sticker. He realizes he didn’t know McCree had a middle name. He realizes his own anxiety at the thought of confronting him with this.

 

He makes it back to the Watchpoint almost late enough into the night for it to be called early morning, and is satisfied not to encounter any company as he dashes past corner after now-familiar corner to his quarters.

“ _Agent Hanzo,_ ” Athena greets him when the door of his room slides shut behind him, “ _welcome back. My scans indicate that you require minor medical assistance. Shall I wake up Doctor Ziegler?_ ”

“Not necessary,” Hanzo grumbles, setting his weapon aside, devoting just as much care to it as he does to placing the winning guitar into his closet, resting snugly draped in one of his older _kyudo-gi_. “I’ll find her myself in the morning.”

“ _As you wish. Shall I set up a briefing room for you to inform the team of your mission tomorrow?_ ”

“...Not necessary,” Hanzo repeats, stiffer, “I’ll inform them myself when I see fit, if it’s all the same to you.”

“ _Understood._ ”

He tries not to think of the AI’s continued silence as mocking, and as he attempts to get at least a brief moment’s rest, his erratic dreams are filled with the discordant melody of an oldies song he almost recognizes, and the flashing impressions of ancient photographs.

 

“You went to do _what?_ ”

For a completely expressionless face, his brother is remarkable at conveying all of his emotions - right now, amused bewilderment, it would seem.

“I thought it would be a good opportunity to gather more information about Talon,” Hanzo makes up excuses, going a mile a minute, “ever since they found out the connection between Reyes and Talon, they’ve been stumped - there’s been no new progress for _months_.”

“That’s because it’s - _dammit,_ Hanzo,” Genji sounds a tad displeased now, legs swinging in the air languidly, the six story drop from the ramp of the comm tower they’ve climbed together seemingly of no concern to him. “It’s not as easy as all that. Reyes was - _is_ , the biggest potential threat to us right now, and... Stop talking like you’re not one of us. You _chose_ to join us, start acting like it.”

“I am,” Hanzo protests, “I went out of my way and risked my life on a reconnaissance mission, and for what?”

“Oh, _please,_ ” Genji laughs, a somewhat augmented sound, but no less warm, pleasantly familiar, “you went out of your way to _steal a guitar_. You didn’t do any of this for Overwatch - you might be able to convince the others, but I know what you look like when you’re infatuated with someone, brother. It’s impossible to miss because it only happens once a thousand years!”

“Son of a bitch!” Hanzo howls into Genji’s laughter, elbowing him in the ribs without much effect, “I am _not_ \- that is _not_ why I did this! How dare you accuse me of...”

“What? Having feelings? Terrible, I know.”

“You are a menace,” Hanzo grumbles, squaring his shoulders, pretending to be particularly interested in the sunset across the sea.

It’s been almost a day since he came back, and he hasn’t found the courage to deliver his gift yet. He is told there will be some sort of a gathering for McCree later, but the thought of facing him there, in front of everyone, puts much more fear in him than any ominous Talon facility ever could.

“You _stole back_ his guitar,” Genji reminds him gently, “you cannot possibly expect me to let you live this down.”

“What if I push you off this ramp and call it a day?”

“You’re still going to have to deal with Jesse, and I will spend the rest of your days laughing at you from the afterlife.”

The bright orb of the setting sun gets cut in half by the surface of the water soon enough, painting it in brilliant streaks of oranges and purples, and Hanzo watches the slow spectacle mutely, lost in thought.

 _A fool’s errand._ Can’t quite tell who the fool actually _is_ in this endeavor anymore, though.

“Can I be there when you give it to him?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Buzzkill.”

 

The opportunity presents itself eventually - or rather, Hanzo finally gathers enough courage to _choose_ one from the million different opportunities he has every single day. Fortunately, McCree didn’t find it at all strange when he didn’t receive anything from him at that impromptu birthday party, aside from a somewhat gruff felicitation, but with each passing day after that, Hanzo feels more and more on edge.

He had watched everyone else congratulating him, drinking with him, laughing and embracing with him, and felt something akin to... longing, and jealousy. Stupid. He never needed a group of people around him, until he was unceremoniously pushed into one, and he blames his brother thoroughly.

“D’you think it’s the full moon keepin’ us up?”

Hanzo’s train of thought is interrupted, and he looks at McCree, bent over his pan, so out of place in the communal kitchen, and yet so oddly at ease.

“Contrary to popular belief, tides and lunar cycles have very little to do with sleeping patterns,” Hanzo informs him, supporting his chin with his hand and watching as McCree seasons his dish with what seems like an obscenely excessive amount of tabasco.

“If you say so,” the gunslinger smiles, “I just know I’ve always found myself incapable of sleepin’ on bright nights like these. Dunno what it is.”

“You do know that insomnia is one of the common side effects of a severely unhealthy lifestyle,” Hanzo comments dryly - as if to demonstrate his point as vividly as possible, Jesse raises one eyebrow at him as he plucks his cigarillo from behind his ear and takes a long drag, while stirring the impossible combination of foodstuff in the pan.

“Is it now,” he drawls, “never seen you eatin’ anything but rice and seafood, and your insomnia seems to be just as bad as mine.”

“I feel like it’s worsened considerably ever since I let you feed me your monstrosities regularly,” Hanzo takes a jab, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth when the cowboy looks terribly insulted.

“Well _excuse me_ for tryin’ to cook nice for you! It ain’t my fault that you can’t appreciate a good taco.”

“Yes, truly the highlight of all midnight delicacies,” Hanzo laughs, and Jesse glares at him, before shaking his head and turning away, not without an amused smirk on his lips.

“What’s a man gotta do to have his efforts appreciated,” he grumbles, and it takes Hanzo a good long while to realize he’s smiling a bit too brightly to himself.

They eat in companionable silence, interrupted only by McCree accusing him of enjoying the meal and not sharing the fact, to which Hanzo responds with a theatrical gagging sound, and before he knows it, they’re sharing a bottle of beer to wash it down, and he has settled in far too comfortably to even think about leaving.

The conversation meanders, from cooking for themselves to their favorite utensils, from that effortlessly to weapons, to self defense... It is never predictable with McCree, never a dull moment. In all his blundering and bluntness, he is always considerate, always respectful of Hanzo’s boundaries - there are some topics that make him uncomfortable still, and Jesse gives those a refreshingly wide berth.

But no matter how relaxed he seems, no matter the tiredness finally creeping into both their postures, Hanzo can sense, can _see_ , his... _fidget,_ as he’d called it himself, his fingers absentmindedly peeling the label off the beer bottle, always pacing as he washes the few dishes, _always in motion..._

“Come with me,” Hanzo blurts out, because apparently the time is now, and when McCree cocks a quizzical brow, he adds, softer: “Please. There is something I have to - should have given you a long time ago. Come?”

“...Alright?” the cowboy wipes his hands with a dishcloth, still appearing unconvinced, “where are we going?”

“My quarters.”

“Your - huh.”

“Just come,” Hanzo grunts impatiently.

His feet seem to carry him on their own - there’s no stopping now. It is very unlike him to feel this nervous, but he supposes he’s waited long enough. Stupid. A fool’s errand, and a fool’s hope.

The door to his quarters slides open almost soundlessly, and it takes him a moment to realize McCree hasn’t followed him inside.

“What?” Hanzo demands.

“No, nothin’, it’s just,” Jesse mumbles, one vague gesture covering the entirety of the room, “so neat. Kinda puts my bunk to shame.”

“Not difficult to achieve,” Hanzo reminds him - he’s had the strange privilege to see his quarters before, and the words _chaotic_ and _messy_ don’t even begin to cover it.

“Hey,” McCree defends himself feebly, finally daring to step inside, cautiously, almost as if he’s worried his mere presence might taint Hanzo’s spartan order - in a way, it already has, but Hanzo doesn’t think either of them is prepared to acknowledge that.

“So, this what you wanted to show me? A late night cleanin’ lesson?”

“Hardly,” Hanzo scoffs, “wait there.”

The guitar produces an almost accusatory _ping_ when he picks it up, and Hanzo’s heart tolls too fast - he almost attempts to shush it. Irredeemably _stupid._ Why is he even consenting to the cowboy seeing him like this? Perhaps because he gets to see said cowboy looking like _that._

It takes Jesse a moment to grasp, his face an amalgam of shifting expressions, from confusion, to comprehension, to wonder, to disbelief. Hanzo trips over his words explaining the situation, very unlike him, the rush, the agitation, and Jesse takes the guitar from him slowly, almost reverently, almost as if he’s worried it might disappear any second now.

“Why would you do this,” he demands to know, and his voice is a little hoarse, a little strained.

“For you,” is the most obvious answer, and then Hanzo’s insides turn at his own honesty, so he adds quickly, “to finally stop... _fidgeting_ all the time. It annoys me.”

“Uh-huh,” Jesse smiles, running his hand up the neck of the instrument so gently, testing the knobs. “I can’t believe it’s really her. I thought you burned, baby.”

“Almost did,” Hanzo grumbles, suddenly feeling very redundant in the room.

“This guitar was with me all throughout... well,” Jesse clears his throat, “this is mighty kind of you, Shimada-san.”

His eyes are gleaming unnaturally in the dim glow of the room, and Hanzo thinks, _really?_

“It was nothing.”

“You could’a gotten yourself killed.”

“I don’t think so - _gah!_ ”

As it turns out, McCree embraces like he shoots, without warning or particular finesse, but powerfully enough to knock you off your feet - Hanzo does indeed stagger, face suddenly full of dingy cowboy serape, and protests with a muffled squawk. Even using only one arm, the other cradling the guitar, his hug is powerful enough to make Hanzo somewhat breathless.

“Apologies,” Jesse rumbles, “that was way unprecedented of me. Thank you for this.”

“It’s... nothing,” Hanzo repeats, finding words suddenly a bit of an issue. His cheeks are burning. “I thought it would make for a good... birthday gift,” he adds, immediately mentally scolding himself for his own awkwardness.

The gunslinger opens his mouth to respond, but then his brow furrows in some momentary uncertainty instead, the smile never leaving his lips. He claps Hanzo on the shoulder, a motion that initially makes him freeze, before he remembers that the fool has always been much more physically expressive than Hanzo’s own threshold can handle, and forces himself to relax.

“Just when you think you’ve got someone all figured out,” McCree says somewhat cryptically, not without a grin.

“You give yourself too much credit,” Hanzo responds tightly.

“Clearly.”

There is a silence - usually, Hanzo is good at navigating silences, comfortable in them, but this one is... He’s suddenly very aware how close they still are. How warm the smile on McCree’s face is. How Hanzo himself has never allowed anyone inside his room. How tired he is, and how warm Jesse’s hand is on his shoulder. All very... odd.

_A fool’s hope._

He takes a fraction of a step forward, really just shifting weight from one leg to the other. Couldn’t explain why if asked.

“I don’t-”

“Alright then!” Jesse exclaims, a bit too cheerily, and Hanzo almost flinches. The moment is shattered, everything is suddenly too loud.

“Thank you again, Shimada-san,” the cowboy continues, his smile now a bit _too_ bright, stumbling over his words. “This is... yeah. Thanks. I’ll see ya tomorrow, right? G’night!”

And before Hanzo can say a single word, McCree disappears, all but _runs off,_ Hanzo realizing his mouth is gaping open only after the door slides shut behind him. His heart is still hammering against his ribcage, as if he just ran a marathon, instead of having a very strange conversation. Well then.

He listens for the footsteps disappearing in the distance, blinking helplessly. That made... very little sense. He looks around his sparse room, searching for nothing in particular. The warmth of McCree’s hand where it grasped his shoulder lingers. _You might be able to fool the others, but I know what you look like when..._

Alright, already.

A fool’s errand, and a fool’s hope, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

_"You're kidding."_

_"What?" he grins truly innocently, weathering Jack's glare with nothing but a raised eyebrow._

_"Planning on waking me up with a serenade every time we sleep together?"_

_Gabriel scoffs fondly, forcing a slower melody on the strings, and Jack crawls from under the covers a bit more, unkempt golden hair sticking in every which direction, and continues to stare, bunching up a pillow under his chin._

_"Only when it's that good,_ cariño, _" Gabriel replies effortlessly, and Jack snorts, hiding his face in the sheets momentarily, making Gabriel smile too wide, too bright. Too easy. They both are._

_"Cheesy bastard," Jack accuses him._

_"Boyscout."_

_"Is it safe to assume you're not wearing anything underneath that guitar?"_

_"Alright, boyscout might have been a bit of an overstatement."_

_Gabriel could probably compose lyrics about how perfectly Jack's laughter fits with his music, but for now, he'll be happy enough to try and capture the fact in voiceless melodies. Anything else really_ would _confirm he's a cheesy bastard, and he doesn't think he's prepared to admit that quite yet._

_But dammit, Jack smiling at him, hugging his pillows like a kid, blue eyes gleaming... Difficult to resist waxing poetic about that._

_He changes his grip, finds a different tune, quicker, bolder, more fun, and Jack's smile turns into a grin._

_"Very mariachi," he notes, and Gabriel snorts._

_"Yeah, spent my youth in a mariachi band."_

_"Did not."_

_"Could've fooled you."_

_It doesn't really matter when the melody slows down, when it stops altogether - later on, pushing the guitar off the bed carefully to make room, Gabriel would like to tell Jack that there's always some song on his mind when they're together, some chords to be rediscovered, but... Yeah. Cheesy bastard._

_He settles for pressing all of it into Jack's skin, every kiss a secret never to be revealed otherwise._

 

 _Couldn't have noticed,_ he tells himself. Couldn't have known. Who in the world would actually be after _that_ particular thing, and infiltrate his headquarters, the heart of his operations, just to get it? Who would be so stupid and bold to get this far and be happy enough to walk away with _a guitar?_

They are all driven by different motivations, different demons. He couldn't explain why he took it in the first place, the very first time he dared show himself to all of them at once - finding his way into the slowly restoring Watchpoint had been almost laughably easy, but then again, nobody exactly expected him to even be alive, much less come knocking on the front door.

Before, Winston had been alone - now, he had company. Which made it all the more fun. Old familiar faces alongside new ones he didn't care for, all alike frozen in horror. They'd wreaked havoc on the Watchpoint that day, and it'd felt good - satisfying. Couldn't have accounted for Jack and Ana turning up out of nowhere, but such is life. Made away with enough intriguing info, and a couple of souvenirs, too. Shame he couldn't stick around to see the cowboy's face when he discovered his quarters relieved of his guitar later that day. He might have done it out of spite, and a little bit out of the need for... something else.

The only people bold enough to ever accuse him of sentiment have long since become like him, shadows, hollow ghosts of their former selves, and he has no one to answer to now - no one requiring explanations, no one who knows about the room no one but him ever enters.

That is, of course, except for the person who _did_ enter it, and took something with them, and _knows._

Reaper gathers himself together, smoke seeping in from the farthest corners of the dark room to form one figure in front of the empty spot where a guitar stood not that long ago, and underneath his mask hides a crooked smile. If they want to play, then so be it.

On the ancient record player nearby, an old, overused vinyl spins, coughing out a melody to a song long forgotten.

-

The fool doesn't play the damn thing - Hanzo can't understand it, and it frustrates him to end. He had seemed so happy, honestly elated, when Hanzo gave him the guitar, and now he won't even touch it?! Hanzo considers it a personal offense - he risked his life to retrieve it!

"Perhaps he's just shy," Genji suggests brightly when Hanzo brings it up.

"He can burp the alphabet in front of the entire group, but he won't play the guitar?" Hanzo glares.

"What are we talking about?"

That's agent Tracer - Lena ( _"Call them by their real names, it makes them like you!"_ ) butting in, sitting down at their table unceremoniously, cup of tea in hand, eyes large and curious. This is what you get for conversing in what they call their cafeteria, Hanzo supposes. Intruders.

"Nothing," he grumbles, at the same time that Genji declares innocently: "My brother was kind enough to valiantly retrieve our resident cowboy's guitar for him, and now he's all upset Jesse won't serenade him."

"I'm going to kill you all over again," Hanzo utters in Japanese, and resolutely stares into _his_ cup of tea, while Lena bursts into delighted laughter.

"You got it back? That's amazing, where was it? A storage room somewhere in the Maintenance Bay, right? Jesse _always_ loses things, I told him, just gotta look harder love, but no, he was convinced it had been taken from him during the raid! But yeah, he's terrific with it, oh man, I'll convince him to play for us again!"

"Again," Hanzo states dryly.

"Oh, he'd strum it all the time, yeah! He knows all these really old songs nobody else does, it's really cute."

"Hm," Hanzo comments, "I see."

Getting up from the table and leaving is a more acceptable option than sitting there and withstanding their looks and words - _what's with him?_ he hears Lena asking, amused, and Genji's answer, he fortunately doesn't catch anymore.

He can't wrap his head around it - there are much more pressing matters to be disgruntled about, after all. From what he understands, their security has been at risk since long before he joined up with them, and there's a real threat of the authorities actually deciding to do something about their recent activity. Overwatch isn't _officially_ reinstated as an institution, not that Hanzo has ever really cared for what's official.

He won't be confiding this in anyone, any time soon, but he likes things this way, likes it... _here._ Steadiness, a set schedule, a peaceful rhythm... Those are all somewhat foreign concepts to him, at least in this measure, and he enjoys it, to a degree, enjoys the drill of constant training, of agreed upon times for meals, of briefing after briefing after briefing...

He hasn't called any place _home_ in a very long time, and he's reluctant to do so here yet, what with how fleeting the entire concept of the new Overwatch is, but he will admit to... not wanting to lose it. Wanting to protect it.

Why he's so incessantly invested in one member of this organisation in particular, now that is left to be determined.

 _Infatuation._ Please. He isn't willing to accept that description. He hasn't felt the desire others seem to spend their entire lives pursuing in the longest time, perhaps ever, and it has never felt like a missing part. Why, of all the people in the planet, a caricature cowboy with a bad smoking habit, a ridiculous belt buckle, and a propensity for spilling sauce on the front of his shirt when he eats, should be the one to change all that, Hanzo has no idea.

"You don't play it."

"Huh?"

McCree tears his gaze away from his gun, his hands never stopping though, cleaning it thoroughly only by instinct, and he appears genuinely baffled.

"The instrument," Hanzo clarifies, "I brought it back for you to play."

"Oh, I... no, yeah, I know."

Eyes suddenly shifty, evading Hanzo's gaze.

"Then why don't you?"

A flicker of some hidden discomfort flashing across his face, and Hanzo should know better, he knows all about suffering confrontations, but something about the gunslinger makes him _so..._ Angry? No, not the right word.

"Wouldn't want you to take this the wrong way, Shimada-san," McCree mutters, "but I don't... play for an audience. Most times. Dunno why."

"Agent Tracer - Lena said you would perform for the group regularly," Hanzo presses on.

"Not anymore."

"Why?"

"Why - _look,_ " McCree glares at him, his voice suddenly sharper, "it was a nice gesture of you an' all that, but... Why do you care? You're usually all cryptic lurkin' and no words, and now all of a sudden you wanna sit down for a jam session?"

Hanzo blinks once, twice.

"I don't like marmalades."

"Marmala - oh my _god._ "

To his immense surprise, Jesse bursts into laughter, shoulders shaking, so much that he has to set his gun aside.

" _What?_ " Hanzo demands, annoyed, cheeks heating up.

"You're screwin' with me, right?" McCree cackles, "did you just make a joke? Alert the authorities!"

"You are an idiot," Hanzo decides.

"You're adorable."

To his own immense embarrassment, Hanzo makes an indignant sound like a pierced duck, which only feeds the cowboy's amusement.

"I am _not_ \- that is beside the point."

"I know, I'm trying to make it the point," Jesse grins. Utterly shameless.

"Be quiet, fool," Hanzo crosses his arms, "I demand an explanation."

"How can I give you one if I'm supposed to be quiet, then?"

"You are _impossible!_ "

"You're cute as a button."

Hanzo wonders if walking away in a huff is _the only way_ of dealing with this organisation's overabundance of... foolishness.

He isn't particularly opposed to being flirted with, and it truly seems to be McCree's automatic response in any given situation, so much so that Hanzo doesn't even consider it genuine anymore... Which might be the problem, come to think of it.

No. Beside the point. Hanzo is on a new mission - this time, to hear the fool play. Might involve just as much skill, and be just as embarrassing, as the mission that led to all this, but he is determined.

Now, gathering intel among the populace, _without_ giving away his strange... curiosity, isn’t exactly his strong suit, but he must try. For the sake of the truth, he must try.

“Naw, can’t say that I’ve ever seen him play it,” shrugs Lúcio, the multicolored young freedom fighter slash pop icon, “but I haven’t been around that much longer than you, Shimada. Why? You like that stuff, yeah? I can change the playlists around...”

“No,” Hanzo interrupts him, “the ones you’ve provided are... satisfactory. Thank you.”

“Satisfactory, huh,” Lúcio smiles, and that very same evening, Hanzo’s organisation e-mail inbox is overflowing with acoustic guitar playlists.

He listens to some before retiring to bed, imagining large but deft hands, one real and one artificial, handling the strings, and it only manages to kindle his curiosity and determination alike.

“Oh, he would play it all the time, yes,” Dr Ziegler remarks casually enough during one of their routine check-ups - which Hanzo submits to willingly this time only because of his pursuit of information, “when we were younger, that is. Before everything that happened... happened.”

“I did not mean to pry,” Hanzo looks away, but she is smiling when he glances back, smiling as she checks his vitals and medical information on her computer.

“You did no such thing. From what I understand, Jesse has had that guitar ever since he was a child. Certainly came to Overwatch with it. I remember him annoying us with commandeering the comm room and strumming these repetitive themes from old westerns for hours on end...”

Hanzo listens to her somewhat sentimental account of the good old halcyon days of Overwatch, and attempts, yet again, not to feel left out. Preposterous, wanting to belong to something that had happened so long ago. He is missing out on nothing.

“And Shimada-san, one last thing,” she makes him concentrate once more, that pleasant, if slightly cryptic, smile still in place.

“Yes?”

“Next time you decide to take on a potentially deadly solo mission that only leaves you unscathed to _the untrained_ eye, do alert the medical personnel beforehand.”

Hanzo’s surprised gasp betrays him, and she laughs, the delighted giggle of someone who is perfectly happy to let you think them clueless until they’re able to use it against you. Hanzo makes a somber mental note not to underestimate _anyone_ around here ever again.

 

Which is, of course, easier said than done.

He understands that the two latest arrivals to the Watchpoint are, in Lena’s words he thinks, _a big deal,_ but his observations have yielded nothing substantial so far - Amari, the sniper, seems to have assumed a motherly role extending far past her actual daughter, and more or less everyone has warmed up to her instantly, and, in Hanzo’s opinion, somewhat recklessly - and as for the matter of the former Commander...

 _He shouldn’t even be alive,_ he remembers Jesse confessing quietly, _not that I’m surprised he survived, always had a thick skin, but..._ Hanzo might understand. Some things are too difficult to go on living with.

They don’t see much of him, ever - he’s even more of a recluse than Hanzo himself, which is saying something, and refuses to reassume the role of Commander, even unofficially. Chides everyone who calls him that, and they don’t see him for hours, days on end. Hanzo knows a wounded predator when he sees one, and steers clear.

And so it is all the more shocking to discover both of them at once, and occupying Hanzo’s favorite training range at that.

They don’t see him coming, and he doesn’t pride himself on spying, but he can’t help but overhear anyway.

“-just saying it might not be possible anymore, Jack. You said it yourself, all hope was lost for all three of us a long time ago.”

“And yet here we are.”

Hanzo freezes, about to turn the corner, the voice, heavy with a gruff dismay, stopping him in his tracks.

“Here we are,” Amari agrees, “but look at us. Look at _them._ It’s not our world anymore.”

“And I’ll be more than happy to leave this world to them,” the soldier sighs, “but I have to get to him, Ana. I have to. Knowing he’s out there...”

“I know. I know.” There’s a gentleness to her voice that seems unwarranted to Hanzo, but then again, he _is_ intruding on a moment the context of which is lost to him.

“I’ve made my inquiries,” Amari continues, “we’ll see what we can dig up, alright? We’ll see what we can do.”

Then the soldier says something too quiet, something Hanzo doesn’t catch, and Amari’s response is fond laughter, and a thud like someone being heftily slapped on the back.

“Sentimental idiot,” she states, and the soldier’s laughter is quieter, but it’s still there.

Hanzo picks that moment to enter, hearing them part ways, and rightly thinking they are too far apart in the large entrance to the shooting range, but they still freeze momentarily when they see him - he spares a curt nod, and gives them a politely wide enough berth as he sets to punch his desired training settings into the computer.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the soldier is not wearing his visor, thin, sharp scars bisecting his brow, cheeks, chin... Hanzo focuses on the computer screen.

“Did nobody teach you it’s not polite to stare?”

Hanzo glowers as the soldier marches past him, scorching him with a telling glare before his mask clicks back in place and he disappears into the adjacent training range - Hanzo resists the urge to retort something equally petty.

“Don’t mind him,” Amari pipes up, evidently amused, “bad day.”

“Are there good ones?” Hanzo mutters, more to himself, but she hears, and barks a laugh.

“Rarely. But don’t let him ruin yours, eh? Here to train? They tell me you’re quite the sharpshooter.”

Hanzo scans her face for any hint of insincerity, but it simply isn’t there, or she carefully chooses not to display it.

“For a while,” he declares, “if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” she grins, “actually wouldn’t mind watching, either.”

“...I prefer to train alone.”

“So do I,” she nods, “but our Jesse tells me you matched his accuracy rating, and since he’s the only one to ever match _mine,_ you’ll pardon my curiosity.”

Blasted cowboy with his wandering mouth - but Hanzo allows it, perhaps out of some sense of pride, perhaps because, and he wouldn’t admit this under the cruelest of tortures, he is curious to find out anything he can about _our Jesse._

Twenty minutes later, she is accusing him of witchcraft as she closely inspects one of his handmade arrowheads, and he finds that not only is he willing to let her do that, but he doesn’t feel as tense as he would have expected to.

“So you’re telling me,” she cackles, sitting nearby as Hanzo leisurely shoots arrow after arrow to inevitably meet the very center of the bullseye a good hundred yards away, “that you beat him the very first day you got here?”

“Well, no,” Hanzo confesses.

“Oh.”

“The first day, I slept.”

Her laughter is infectious enough that he smirks to himself as he reloads Storm Bow, and she watches him with increasing interest, which he weathers calmly.

“I _wish_ I could have seen Jesse’s face.”

“We competed for a while,” Hanzo recalls, not without fondness, “one day it was him at the top of the scoreboard, one day it was me. Helped keep his wit sharp, I believe.”

“You did him a real service,” she nods, with a slight suggestive undertone he chooses not to hear, really.

“I have a question,” he says instead, without thinking about it too much. _Thwack,_ another arrow hits its mark, in perfect sync with his heartbeat.

“Yes?”

_Thwack._

“Have you heard him play his guitar?”

_Thwack. Thwack._

There is a kindness to her eyes that surprises him, when finally does glance at her - it’s a fondness he doesn’t know the roots of, but is capable of decrypting anyway, to some degree.

“You have the strangest questions.”

Hanzo looks away. Three arrows, three perfect marks.

“He couldn’t really play the thing when he first brought it with him,” Amari chooses not to embarrass him further, “just imagine it, lanky kid with a guitar, and that damn hat and serape of his. And the belt buckle, too. Nobody took him seriously at first, to be honest with you. But you could see the potential. Well, some of us could. He could handle a gun like nobody’s business, and while I taught him how to shoot... others indulged his hobbies.”

“Reyes,” Hanzo nods, taking a breath as the automated targets are moved aside, a fresh batch appearing for him to conquer. “He taught him how to play.”

A beat, a moment of silence from her.

“Jesse was right, you’re a dangerously bright one.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Hanzo mumbles, assessing the tautness of Storm Bow’s string without looking. She is smiling still.

“A wise choice. But yes, Reyes taught him. You’ve never heard anyone play like him, I can guarantee that. They’d spent a lot of time annoying all of us together. No matter... Whatever happened between them, Reyes was Jesse’s first proper teacher, in more ways than one. If he chooses not to play now, it’s out of respect.”

“Reyes isn’t even here anymore,” Hanzo notes.

“No,” she sighs, as if he’s a child incapable of seeing the solution to a simple problem in class, “he’s not. But for some people, memories are rekindled too easily. All it takes is a word, or a picture... Or the melody of a guitar.”

“I don’t follow,” Hanzo frowns, and she need not respond, not really - the door on the far side of the vast room slides open, and the soldier - Morrison - marches out, only sparing them a short look before disappearing, and when Hanzo looks from him back to Amari, her eyebrows are raised in a very telling way.

_I have to get to him, Ana..._

Hanzo recalls the dark room, and the jumbled melody, and the collection of various remembrances, the pictures, two bold men side by side, imposing and larger than life, familiar to him only from the very scarce profiles he’s been allowed to read.

 _Almost had you there,_ the dead man had said, and Hanzo had simply assumed he meant all of his former teammates, not just... not just one.

“I see,” he says softly, and Amari’s kindness is tinged with something bitter underneath.

“There you go,” she nods, and sounds suddenly quite tired, “so please, excuse that boy if he doesn’t want to play his guitar.”

 

And so, Hanzo doesn’t push it any further - in fact, he decides for an entirely different approach, taken aback and the slightest bit guilty, and gives the cowboy as much as space as he himself would enjoy, which is, simply put, a whole lot.

Hanzo still sits next to him during communal meals, still lets him boast his training results almost every morning, still lets him make them vastly unhealthy meals at vastly unhealthy times of the night, but... The conversation doesn’t stray anymore. Hanzo steers clear of personal questions altogether, and chooses simply to observe - he can be glad he is allowed to do even that.

He came here last and they were right to be distrustful of him, cautious and suspicious - Genji spent so much time trying to convince them to accept Hanzo into their ranks, and Hanzo feels a hot pang of anger, with no one but himself, when he recalls how cold he had been, how dismissive.

How warm Jesse had been to him, how welcoming. How he simply wouldn’t leave him alone until Hanzo finally talked. How, the very first time they saw each other, everyone else either shook Hanzo’s hand or barely acknowledged him, and only McCree moved in for a handshake as well, and then seemed to correct himself, remember something... And then he bowed, exchanging his own culture’s traditional greeting for that of Hanzo’s, who’d stood there completely speechless, responding only by force of habit...

No. Hanzo must not think himself on the same level as them, people who have spent ages together, been through such numerous hardships together, became _a family_ along the way. He sees them embracing and laughing at jokes only they can understand, and witnesses them supporting each other, and protecting each other, with an ease that only comes with a certain amount of shared experience, of shared emotions... And he is reminded he is nothing but a visitor here, a new arrival they are right to be wary of.

The longing to belong doesn’t quite disappear with that approach, but he can at least fool himself into thinking otherwise. _A fool’s hope._

 

It happens several days after his encounter with Ana Amari - the evening training session is strangely crowded, and for once, Hanzo doesn’t mind the company. He tests his speed against Lena - an almost impossible task, but he is glad of the exercise, finding himself smiling as she flits by, blue flash after blue flash, quicker than he can blink - and he indulges Hana, the slender mechanic operator, explaining how he crafts his explosive arrows.

Fareeha, Ana’s daughter, has many interesting insights about the difference between their prosthetics, and argues with Hanzo and her mother to that effect for quite some time, and finally, Genji and him attempt to combine their techniques into one very unstable whole, which ends in several of the training robots combusting, to the cheers and amusement of the quickly amassing crowd.

Even Dr Ziegler - Angela - is there, and gives Hanzo a telling look as she checks over the minor burn on his forearm, declaring him perfectly fit for ‘ _more mischief_ ’.

Hanzo can’t quite tell how he finds himself walking out of the training range surrounded by people, with his brother by his side, and, contrary to his expectations, _not_ feeling in the least bit annoyed. Perhaps a bit disheartened that the fray doesn’t include one very distinctive hat-wearing gunslinger, but that’s not important.

The base is quiet around them, safe for Athena reminding each of them about their tasks and the important briefing coming up tomorrow, and they scatter in pleasant conversation, until Hana stops dead, causing an almost comical collision of people not watching where they’re going and bumping into each other, as she announces: “Do you guys hear that?”

“What now?” Angela demands.

“Shh, that!”

It truly is a testament to the curiosity of the younger members of the team, that they manage to quiet down and listen, a lot of them with eyes wide and genuine curiosity in them. Hanzo smirks, amused by the display, and when his gaze finds Ana Amari’s, she winks at him. And then he hears it too.

No louder than the murmur of wind, a melody is coming from somewhere nearby - the gentle plucking of a guitar. Hanzo’s heart skips a beat.

“What is that?” Lena pipes up, and is shushed by at least three different people - Hanzo pays them no mind, and walks forward in between them, until he is at the head of the group.

He doesn’t care much if they follow him, but he does follow the sound, chasing it like the thread of a cobweb shimmering in the air, his heart tolling somewhere in his throat. Around the corner, to where the railing envelops the entirety of the cafeteria, almost all the lights dimmed down, chairs and tables abandoned below them, except for...

Hanzo stops, and it becomes obvious that the others have been following him like chicks in the footsteps of a hen, because they pour out and close to the railing around him, all of them watching mutely.

Jesse sits on the parapet of the window on the far wall, offering a view of the Watchpoint’s loading bay, and behind it, the cliffs and the sea, the stars... In his hands, he cradles his guitar, eyes closed, fingers traveling across the strings with an ease and a joy that leaves Hanzo breathless.

He notices them soon enough, and Hanzo’s heart sinks when he fumbles to stop, put the instrument away - but then the team hurries to his side, down from the railing, _no, please, keep going!_ , and McCree is flushed and embarrassed, looking around frantically, adjusting his hat awkwardly, hands clearly _itching_ to get back to playing...

Hanzo stands there alone, abandoned, above everyone else, and watches as if it were a movie painted in warm colors, everyone crowding around Jesse as he picks up the guitar again, his eyes searching until they find Hanzo’s, nothing but a nod, a knowing glint of a smile exchanged between them, and he resumes playing.

The melody is a cheerful one, rushing ahead like a babbling brook, bringing a smile to everyone’s face, and Hanzo’s heart swells, hand gripping the cold metal of the railing tighter, as he is allowed to inspect every inch of McCree, the concentration in his features, lips pressed together tight, his broad shoulders squared, his casual posture, his foot tapping away in a rhythm Hanzo deduces must be mostly an afterthought...

The figure appears from the shadows below, crossing his arms and leaning on a wall nearby, and they notice him one by one, their murmur of laughter and chatter quieting down until even the guitar stops, a tense silence spreading.

The soldier’s visor gleams an unwelcoming red, and Hanzo notes the guilt in Jesse’s face.

“Well, don’t stop on my account,” Morrison says at last, tightly but resolutely, and it’s as if the entire room breathes a sigh of relief.

Hanzo feels the laughter building up in his throat as well, _this is so ridiculous,_ and he only contains it halfway, but fortunately, it gets lost among everyone else’s.

The melody returns, hesitant at first, more determined as it progresses, and Hanzo makes to leave - reassured in his conviction that he is to be nothing but a shadow in the background, he is prepared to leave them to their merriment, until his gaze catches Jesse’s once more.

The cowboy jerks his head almost imperceptibly, and the wordless song soars. _Come here._

And Hanzo goes.

-

 

Across the silent, dark expanse of water, from a comfortable vantage point, he watches. Just as reckless as ever, the load of them. Out of countless Watchpoints around the world, Winston had to choose Gibraltar, with its vast warehouses one can get so easily lost in, and indefensible entrances, and _windows._

And what’s more, even after Reaper visited it once, twice, they _still stayed._

Well, joke’s on them.

He scans the faces one by one, familiar and otherwise, so much _happiness_ in them, all turned to the central figure. Typical of the kid, to steal the spotlight, strumming his guitar whenever he gets the opportunity, just for the off chance of attracting a couple listeners.

The dossiers didn’t lie, and he recognizes most of the new arrivals... Until he gets stuck on the archer. Honestly, a bow, in this time and age. And there is an arrowhead or two being analyzed back in Reaper’s lab right now, surprisingly delicate, intriguingly complex. He smirks. Bingo.

He sees a flicker of red, might as well be Jack’s visor, _subtlety was never your strong suit._ His grip on his gun tightens, but he reminds himself to relax. This time, what he wants will not be achieved by charging head on. This time, he gets to play first.

Black smoke seeps like sand off the cliff, swiftly and soundlessly, and mingles with the seafoam, carried by the currents towards the shore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay yes this fic absolutely doesn't aim to take itself seriously, so Gabe has nothing better to do than play around with the team over a guitar, and guitar playing in general turns out to be very srs bsns, what can I say. I'm having too much fun writing this! More characters make an appearance, all of them a delight to work with. Thank you to everyone who commented, for a very warm welcome into the fandom! :) Come find me at my [gamer blog](http://mckuree.tumblr.com) for more shenanigans.


	3. Chapter 3

The realization comes to him slowly - no sudden epiphanies, no clouds parting and the knowledge being bestowed upon him. No, it takes time, but then again, if anyone asked him to describe  _ how _ it happened, which moments were the decisive ones, which stolen glances made him absolutely sure, he couldn’t answer.

Perhaps it was that night Hanzo first saw him play the guitar, the love and care in his every movement, exposing a part, a facet of him Hanzo had never seen before. Or perhaps it was hidden in any of the dozens, hundreds of tiny moments following that, out of sight, and yet worming its way into Hanzo’s heart.

The point of the matter is, he can no longer fool himself into thinking McCree is of no more significance to him than the other members of the team - no longer can he pretend like he divides what little time he sets aside for socializing evenly among the group.

His solitary equilibrium has been shattered to pieces, and one terribly American drawl and the smell of cigarillos is to blame.

Unfortunately for Hanzo, he might be good at keeping his feelings to himself where relative strangers are concerned, but one can never trick family.

“Say, Jesse,” begins Genji, the three of them, accompanied by a handful others, preparing for yet another simulated mission that Athena has drafted for them, companionable chatter filling the training lounge as they wait for the systems to boot up, “how would you feel about a little wager?”

McCree laughs boisterously, and Hanzo attempts with all his might to ignore the veins in his forearms showing as he rolls up the sleeves of his frustratingly impractical plaid shirt, breastplate, belt buckle, pantalons already in place.

“Reckon I’d feel pretty nice about it!” he grins, the others turning their attention to them as well, “what do you have in mind?”

“Me versus your bullets,” Genji replies casually, testing his weapon in his hand as if to taunt Jesse, “we haven’t trained together in a while. I’d like to test my agility against Deadeye.”

McCree barks a laugh, echoed by numerous others.

“Amigo, have you  _ seen _ him shoot?” Lúcio guffaws, “it’s like  _ schwoop schwoop schwoop, _ six bullets a second! It’s crazy!”

“I’m aware,” Genji  _ sounds _ like he’s smirking.

“Tin man, you have a death wish,” Jesse drawls.

“Is that a yes?” Genji inclines his head.

To Hanzo’s surprise, Jesse glances at him, as if for approval.

“Fine,” he shrugs, “dead guy buys the bottle?”

“Just like old times.”

“God, save it until the end of the match though, yeah?” Lena pipes up, “you know Winston has like half Athena’s servers down for maintenance, right?”   
“The last time they tried this during a training session, the rendering speed of both their moves overheated something within the system,” Angela explains to Hanzo, as if he asked, “and we all got a nasty zap.”

“Incredible,” Hanzo says dryly.

“Uh, doesn’t that mean one of you has to switch teams?” notes Fareeha.

“Oh my, I didn’t even think of that!” Genji exclaims, and to anyone else, it sounds genuine, but Hanzo can  _ see _ the mischievous glint in his visor. “Our team has too much offense anyway. Jesse, why don’t you balance out the enemy.”

So this has been his agenda all along - Athena’s base training programming doesn’t allow for friendly fire, and so if Genji and Jesse, starting out on the same side, really wish to massacre each other, they must now be on opposing teams. And today, Hanzo and his brother have agreed to spar as well, which only leaves one option.

“If they’ll have me,” McCree is smiling directly  _ at _ Hanzo, who merely huffs and turns his attention to his bow - how does the cowboy come by the right to look this enthusiastic?

“Come on along!” beckons Reinhardt, Hanzo’s squad’s select tank for the day, and Jesse trots over happily, as if they are picking teams in gym - the others slap his shoulders and holler cheerfully, while Hanzo merely stands to the side, trying to glare a hole into Genji’s head.

“Bunch of children,” Angela smiles, mirroring his own feelings about the situation, “I would advise you to steer clear and watch carefully when they do decide to go at it, though.”

“I know what my brother is capable of,” Hanzo remarks, choosing not to add,  _ behaving like a teenager in hopes of riling me up. _

“Perhaps,” she smirks, “but have you ever seen Deadeye in action?”

Hanzo shakes his head curtly.

“Well, you’re in for quite the show,” Angela smiles a tad too mysteriously for Hanzo’s liking.

 

It is not that McCree hasn’t boasted his combat abilities before - the opportunities to see him in action have been plentiful, but their strikes never required anything beyond simple teamwork tactics, and a bit of improvisation here and there. Hanzo himself has only unleashed the dragons twice since he came here, and his life wasn’t  _ desperately _ in danger either of those times.

He supposes it must be some strange sort of luck that has been guiding them through fight after fight without having to resort to last-minute measures, but that doesn’t sate his curiosity one bit.

_ Deadeye. _ A ridiculously over-the-top nickname for a ridiculously over-the-top man...

Nevertheless, Hanzo keeps a close eye on him, which, for once, isn’t difficult, being on the same team and all. If pressed, he might admit to liking this system of training - these complicated projections that the station AI creates for them from scratch feel very much like the real deal, and they get to strategize and come up with new formations, new techniques, on the go, while also keeping score, which might be the biggest perk of all for some.

From what Hanzo understands, the young ones have a running bet of sorts for the highest killstreak - he thinks there are phone applications involved, and a traveling reward of sorts, but the rest eludes him. The blooming generation, so difficult to match the pace of.

“Yeah, dang! 10 player killstreak!”

And then there’s McCree.

The cowboy seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly, dashing across the map with no regard for strategy  _ or _ teamwork - this one is modeled after the template he provided, after all, a desert refuge bisected by one of those driveways the Americans so like to consider traditional. To Hanzo, it just seems tragically unkempt, its surroundings somewhat dingy and derelict, but there is... a warmth to it, a cozy familiarity, the sky bleached by the glaring sun, red sand underneath their feet and orange rocks climbing up high all around them... In a way, it reminds Hanzo of Jesse himself.

“ _ Payload captured! _ ” resounds Fareeha’s voice over the comms, and Hanzo swears under his breath, drawing another arrow, scanning his surroundings - his team have scattered somewhat, and he needs to confirm moving ahead.

“Let’s do this, pardner!”

Jesse is suddenly by his side, all business now, and Hanzo sighs, only motioning for him to go ahead - he will provide cover fire. He remembers joining them for the first couple of times, and truly struggling with their way of doing things, with their idea of cooperation - he’d been accustomed to working alone for the longest time, and joining a team, having people rely on you and learning to rely on them, was probably the greatest challenge he faced upon coming to Overwatch. He is not objective in the matter so he can’t quite judge whether he’s improved or not, but he does feel more... sure, steadier on his feet.

His role within the roster of these particular agents has come to be something between offense and support - he can provide a good safety net sniping at the enemy while everyone else works head on, but he has no trouble charging ahead and using his superior speed and unmatched precision striking to clear the way.

Right now, he is immensely enjoying himself, letting his arrows follow McCree around and take out anyone trying to get at him from behind or above - apparently, they do make a good team, and Jesse’s praise rings dulcet in Hanzo’s ears, no matter how set he still is on elbowing his brother in the ribs the first chance he gets, for playing matchmaker.

“Alright people, we are back on track!” calls Fareeha over the comms, “moving ahead with the payload!”

The explosion comes out of nowhere - up to that point, Hanzo was certain he had a good overview of the situation, but it seems to surprise everyone equally, curses in several languages echoing in his ears.

“Ouch!” Hana exclaims, equal parts shocked and delighted, “who was that? Zarya?”

“That was more along the lines of some old-fashioned explosive, than that darn cannon of hers, if you ask me,” Jesse speculates, having experienced almost the very center of the blast, “my ribs definitely felt it.”

Hanzo searches the rooftops and crevasses, head after enemy-colored head, but they all seem equally confused, the tight formation they’d assumed crumbling for a brief moment. Everyone else seems to shake it off quickly and take advantage of that, advancing while there’s a window, but Hanzo feels... It’s nothing more than a hint of uncertainty. An itch, something on the back of his mind that he should be recalling right now, but it is hidden from him. He follows his team with more caution.

He first sees it out of the corner of his eye right before he joins the action, diving off one rooftop to another - it might as well be his eyes deceiving him, a misplaced shadow, a fleeting glimpse of the core programming, it happens sometimes from what he understands...

But no, it's there again when he respawns mere minutes later, like a curl of smoke attempting to assume a somewhat recognizable shape. It disappears before Hanzo can truly assess it, and then reappears again, so easily mistaken for a dust devil, swirling on the edge of the map... Hanzo trains his arrow on it, oblivious to his teammates' orders and cries for help. It reminds him of... something, he can't put a finger on it - and it lingers, the artificial desert wind not affecting it one bit, like a specter of something trying but failing to keep itself tethered, like a ghost-

He shoots. His arrow clatters uselessly on the ground, and he's looking at nothing but red sand again.

"Could there be a glitch in the system?" he demands over the comms.

"What are you talking about, Robin Hood?" giggles Lúcio, "get over here, we're winning!"

"McCree," Hanzo utters.

"What did you see?" the gunslinger asks immediately, though he sounds a bit strained.

"It was a... I'm not..."

The flashing crimson of Jesse's serape captures his gaze, down below, a flurry of evasive maneuvers - he is in trouble.

"Nothing," Hanzo decides, "I'm sure it was nothing."

"If you're sure," Jesse laughs, "but yeah, do get over here,  _ Robin Hood. _ "

It might be a good thing, after all, that Genji and him are not on the same team today, Hanzo speculates as he dashes to intercept - he would never let him live  _ that _ particular nickname down.

Their victory is well earned, though Hanzo can't concentrate, not fully - he thinks he sees it again, several times, like a mirage, hot air flickering and shaking on a summer day, but whenever he attempts to focus on it, it isn't there any longer.

He decides to chalk it up to... confusion, perhaps, losing track of the battlefield, even though that hasn't happened once since he came here... No matter. He has another inexplicable phenomenon to concentrate on.

"Somebody take pics!" Jesse hollers, twirling Peacekeeper in his hand at the speed of light, while Genji weighs his weapon halfway across the empty warehouse, the spectators watching from a safe distance - around them, the map has slowly begun to deteriorate, Athena saving power to accommodate for the upcoming power surge.

Hanzo recalls first being signed up for the training system, his powers being assessed,  _ haven't had anything this strong since Deadeye _ ... He didn't pay it much mind then, but curiosity gnaws at him now - he doesn't understand the full scope of the technical specifications, but he was told to use his powers as he sees fit, only they won't  _ actually  _ manifest in the otherwise empty training room where their makeshift missions happen,  _ can you imagine how dangerous that would be... _

Winston had used a number of very specifically scientific terms Hanzo didn't even pretend to understand, but here they are now, and time seems to have slowed down. _ You're in for quite the show... _

He doesn't know whether it's the particular sort of exhaustion that comes with testing your abilities in a computer program, or it actually happens  _ every time _ the cowboy performs this way, but there is... light. So much light, like the setting of the sun itself, a blinding halo of honey golden glow around Jesse's head as he raises his hand as if in slow motion. Hanzo sees that, and he sees his brother readying his katana, his entire body taut, ready to spring into action, and everyone else hurrying out of the gunslinger's line of sight...

And then a loud bang which might as well be six separate gunshots all melding into one with the impossible speed, and Genji disappears, flits out of place lighting-quick, sword gleaming in fading sunlight that isn't actually there... Hanzo feels his heart fluttering frantically, only to come to an abrupt halt when he sees an all too familiar sight, his brother's body contorted on the ground, on his way towards Jesse, but not quick enough, never quick enough, dead on the ground sooner than he could reach him, and Hanzo knows in his soul that it isn't real, it's just a projection,  _ it isn't real... _

He still turns away resolutely when the others erupt into spontaneous cheers, and relief only comes after they are pulled out of the simulation and back into the real world, and he sees Genji among the others, unscathed, in one piece,  _ evidently fit enough to joke about his misfortunes... _

Hanzo doesn't find it in him to laugh with the rest.

"Hey," Jesse trots up to his side as they exit the training room, after everyone has finished congratulating him and slapping his back, "what did you say you saw back there?"

Hanzo measures him mutely - if he tries, he can still recall the halo of gold enveloping him, see him as if he were one of the figures from the cheesy old movies he adores so much, tall, imposing, colorful... Still terrifying. Right now, though, he fumbles to take off his hat and wipe the sweat off his brow, those impractical spurs jingling as he marches to keep up with Hanzo's pace, and appears... if not outright exhausted, then certainly a tad rough around the edges.. Hanzo sighs. That should not have affected him so.

"It was nothing," he says quietly, "nothing at all."

"Hmm," Jesse frowns at him, "you don't exactly strike me as the kind of fella to go yellin' about weird things appearin' out of nowhere. I might be wrong."

"It was..." Hanzo hesitates. If he trusts anyone not to dismiss him, it's McCree, however unsettling that realization might be.

"Hey, honcho!" Lúcio calls from behind then, as if Hanzo and Jesse are escorting a group of misbehaving teenagers home from school, "got your big skit on video!"

McCree raises one eyebrow, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth, and despite himself, Hanzo smiles. This is no place for useless worries and unfounded... hunches.

"It was nothing," he repeats, "thank you for your concern."

The cowboy looks like he might want to prod further, find out more, and Hanzo in turn finds out, to his own shock, that he himself  _ wants to _ talk to him, but then other people are taking Jesse away from him, and his longing for solitude returns, and cannot be ignored any longer.

He might like this best about the Watchpoint - when needed, it's not at all difficult to lose everybody and spend a couple of hours out of sight. The base used to house exponentially more people than their little group, and all those people left behind numbers of empty rooms, and hallways, and nooks and crannies made for someone who longs for a bit of peace and quiet.

Hanzo himself favors the outdoors, Genji and him often climbing the old unused radio tower at the edge of the compound, but this time, he doesn't want anyone to find him, and he especially doesn't want his brother to start asking questions Hanzo hasn't prepared the answers for quite yet.

After showering and tending to his bow and dormitory alike, Hanzo leaves all of it behind, makes a kettle of green tea for himself, and dodges several people talking about dinner and the heedless celebration that will probably follow - he admires his teammates for being capable of carving out enough time for things like that, carelessly joyful get-togethers which serve to strengthen the bond between all of them, but Hanzo himself is only just learning to be among other people himself, and sometimes, he simply needs a break.

And in a way, he thinks, settling on the rooftop above the core of the base, he  _ is _ with them, just... high above. He can almost pretend he hears their voices in the cafeteria several floors below him. The view from here is breathtaking, the bright glimmer of the distant shore, the surface of the water yet again set ablaze with the burn of the magnificent sunset - Hanzo wonders if he will always be reminded of McCree from now on, looking at that.

Time passes differently for him up here - the sun disappears below the horizon quickly, the last vestiges of warmth dissipating, but he doesn't mind, watches as the base slowly comes to life with a different kind of light. No one requires anything of him, no one searches for him, and yet he does not feel lonely - this is a new experience for him, having spent most of his  _ life _ alone and content with the fact.

He first notices it when the need for refreshment slowly nudges at him until meditating is no longer possible, and he drinks his tea thoughtfully, watching the first stars appear like brilliant beads scattered across the dark velvet canvas of the sky. A different kind of glimmer catches his eye, a flash of red where he knows the shore is, where the basin turns in an elegant arch, its far end directly opposite the Watchpoint - as far as he knows, there's nothing but rocks and the occasional resilient pine tree there. Not that he has investigated yet. But it flashes, once, twice, three times, and Hanzo decides that now might be a good time.

He knows not what odd agitation makes him spring to his feet and glare, searching for yet another -  _ there. _ Like a lighthouse, a forgotten beacon, an alarm system going off - it reminds him of many things, but somehow, he knows it is neither. He stands completely motionless for the longest time, assessing, the wind toying with his scarf . He isn't in the least certain why he's suddenly so alert, so worried - cursing his choice to leave his bow behind, he decides to get a better vantage point, and moves without a sound, never quite descending all the way down to the ground, but rather sticking to the rooftop, moving from that to the outer structure of the vents carved into the mountain, to the railings crisscrossing the entire base, closer to the beach, making sure he can always see the horizon.

It could be a comm tower of some sort, but shapes are impossible to recognize at this distance - sand screeches underneath the metal soles of his prosthetics, and he climbs the rocks above the base with ease. It's still there, and unless he's mistaken, it's blinking faster now, as if it's honing in on the base, as if...

"Whoa there!"

He almost trips over his own feet, and, by association, over McCree - the man is just sitting there in the sand with the guitar in his lap, and he appears so astonishingly out of place that Hanzo can't help but stare silently for a moment.

"Late night jog?" Jesse laughs, his fingers never abandoning the strings, a somewhat somber melody supporting this already very strange scene.

"What are you doing here?" Hanzo demands.

"Aw, you know, I like to come here every now and then to just-"

"Did you not  _ see _ anything?"

"See what?" McCree's eyes widen.

"There," Hanzo points to the horizon, "there's a... I saw a light. A red, flashing... What is on the other side of the basin?"

"Uhh," McCree's song slows down, and he gazes to where Hanzo is pointing, "bunch of rocks, I think? Why?"

The light is gone, nothing but stars gleaming against the night sky.

"I saw... it seemed unnatural."

"You wanna take the truck, go check it out?"

"I've driven with you before," Hanzo scoffs absentmindedly, "no thank you."

"Suit yourself," Jesse chuckles, and then, after another moment's silence, "hey. You okay? You look... I don't know. Off."

" _ Off, _ " Hanzo repeats, "I'm perfectly fine."

"That's good, then."

"What about you."

"What about me?"

"You are not celebrating your...  _ true shot _ with the others," Hanzo points out, never tearing his gaze away from the dark strip of ground up ahead, just in case.

"Hah, yeah," McCree huffs, "I did, for a bit."

"What changed?" Hanzo asks casually, climbing another rock nearby to stand higher, "did someone not appreciate you burping out the alphabet for the hundredth time?"

"Hey now!" the cowboy defends himself, "that is a masterpiece of modern entertainment!"

"If you say so," Hanzo smirks.

For a moment, everything is quiet, save for the gentle plucking of McCree's guitar, a song Hanzo almost recognizes, and the murmur of the sea kissing the shore.

"People are too much sometimes," McCree mutters then, almost like he's ashamed to admit it, "gotta find a quiet spot every now and then, you know? Well, I guess you do know, disappearin' the way you do."

"Meditating," Hanzo corrects him calmly, "it is a good way of attaining peace of mind. I did offer to teach you-"

"Yeah, and I refused," McCree laughs, a pleasant rumble that almost makes it tempting to lose focus. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks, and all that. This relaxes me just as well, believe me."

"Suit yourself," Hanzo shrugs, and Jeese flashes him a grin.

"Lots of young ones this time around, you know?" he continues a conversation Hanzo never planned on starting, "difficult to keep up with sometimes."

Hanzo exhales heavily - there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary anywhere in the swirling darkness of the sea and sky, and he would hate to think he's started seeing ghosts again. Better leave it. Vaguely disappointed, he turns to McCree at last, trying to figure out if the cowboy wants him to stay-

"It was different when I was hired, you know."

Oh. Yes, most probably.

"How so?" Hanzo finds himself engaging him, out of nothing more complicated than curiosity.

The melody continues, even softer now, a quiet reminder of when Hanzo himself was a child, practicing with the shamisen - that memory hits him out of nowhere, and for a breathless moment, he merely watches Jesse's fingers dancing on the fretboard, mesmerized.

"Well, for starters, the only other person my age was Angela," Jesse smiles to himself, "and Fareeha, but she wasn't around much. They tortured me relentlessly, I'm telling you."

"Shocking," Hanzo nods, "how old were you?"

"Seventeen," Jesse grins effortlessly.

Hanzo stares.

"Don't look so alarmed, now," the cowboy laughs, "it was the best thing that could have happened to me at that time. Reyes, Morrison... they saved my life, finding me like that. Givin' me a choice."

"Either join up, or meet the same fate as the rest of your gang."

"You've read the files, huh," McCree cocks his eyebrow.

Hanzo has. When one can recognize how ruthless a person was simply by reading the - heavily redacted - reports of their missions, it's certainly a feat - and Gabriel Reyes was afraid of nothing and no one, assembling his black ops organisation from misfits and renegades from all walks of life, most of them evading incarceration or worse only thanks to him. Compared to some of them, McCree, with his past in gambling and weapons trafficking, was a true angel back then. Not to mention an actual child.

"I'm pretty sure Reyes faked my age, though," the gunslinger admits, amused, his robotic index finger helping the strings achieve a perfect vibrato, "the UN wasn't big on child soldiers, y'see."

"Did you know?" Hanzo asks, relenting at last and sitting down on the nearest flat surface, the stone still warm from the sun long gone. "About Reyes?"

There is a hitch, a discordant note, in the melody, and Jesse’s smile has a bitter edge to it.

“What, that he was going to go ballistic one day?” he scoffs, “nah.”

“I see.”

“I mean... Look, he was  _ always _ crazy, alright, you don’t go commandin’ a largely unsupervised black ops division with almost unlimited power like that, and... I don’t know, be right as rain. His morals had always been grey, and he’d always believed that the end justified the means, but if you’re asking me whether I knew he would betray Overwatch... That he would betray Morrison like that...”

“We can speak of something else,” Hanzo suggests, picking up on the tension easily.

McCree waves his hand dismissively - stops playing, lights himself a cigarillo, slow, efficient movements. Hanzo can tell that this, too, puts him at ease.

“He was a crazy fucker, but Morrison and him...” Jesse searches for words, eyes unfocused, fingers absentmindedly stroking the body of the guitar, “have you ever met someone and... and  _ knew _ they were going to do amazing things? It was a privilege, watching them work. Learning from them. Those two, they were a force of nature when they were together.”

“And were they?” Hanzo asks, “together?”

Jesse laughs shortly, captures Hanzo’s gaze briefly, shakes his head. Answer enough.  _ How could they have not been? _

“I see,” Hanzo repeats, a foreign, unidentifiable heaviness settling in his chest.

“They made you believe, you know?” McCree says, quieter, looking ahead to the pitch black of the horizon, “in... I don’t know. Second chances. Starting over. Hell, beating the odds. None of us saw it coming. I mean, sure, from what I hear Reyes was never his old self after Jack got promoted, but I was there, I saw it firsthand, and they never seemed like... It always looked to me like there ain’t nothing those two couldn’t get through. Funny, huh? Believin’ in someone that way. Can’t imagine how Jack feels.”

Hanzo spares a thought for the gruff, quiet man he only ever sees glimpses of - Winston and Angela and the rest, they’ve been attempting to include him in meetings and briefings of all sorts, but it rarely works out, the soldier keeping to himself and still refusing to reassume his former role within the organisation.

In Hanzo’s experience, it is either anger or grief that creates men this rough, and Jack Morrison seems to have enough of both to go around.

“But hell, all of that is in the past now,” Jesse laughs, surprising Hanzo yet again with his strange skill of moving past and navigating through difficult topics with a childlike ease. “You saw him on the battlefield - there’s nothing of him left. The Reyes we had... Lost him in Switzerland. That’s the way I wanna see it.”

Hanzo merely nods his approval - he of all people can see the benefits of coping with a difficult situation by adopting a conviction, a belief, that might not be entirely true, but helps one get out of bed every day.

“Hell, now I need a beer,” Jesse huffs, “sorry for bringin’ the mood down.”

“I asked you in the first place,” Hanzo reminds him.

“Right. You wanna join me? We can dodge the crowd, get a drink, check the long range scanners for that weird... thing you thought you saw... What do you think?”

“And here I thought you didn’t know how to have sophisticated fun.”

That jab comes out of nowhere, Hanzo even a bit surprised at himself, but it makes Jesse laugh as he scrambles to his feet, extending his hand to Hanzo, as if he requires it in the least.

“Careful there, Shimada-san,” he grins, “someone might mistake that for a sense of humor.”

There is something so kind about his smile, so genuine - Hanzo wonders if it takes the glint of distant moonlight to notice, or if it has always been there, exactly the part of him that Hanzo has been drawn to.

“Perish the thought,” he replies, continuing the trend of surprising himself most of all when he accepts the cowboy’s hand and lets him pull him to his feet - they stand face to face, and it might take a tad longer for them to let go of each other than entirely necessary, but neither of them decides to comment.

“You know what, Hanzo,” Jesse pipes up as they walk down the beach towards the metal staircase leading up to the base, neither of them feeling the need to rush anywhere, “I like you.”

Hanzo mulls over that simple statement for a moment, listening to McCree dragging his feet like a child, sending pebbles flying every chance he gets.

“Why?” he asks at last, which earns him a loud bark of laughter.

“Do I need a reason?” McCree sounds genuinely amused.

“Of course you do!”

“Genji was worried about you, you know.”

“How so?” Hanzo stiffens up.

“Aw, relax. Just about you fittin’ in, is all. That we wouldn't accept you, stuff like that. Told me as much.”

“Hm,” Hanzo huffs.

“But I’d say you’re bein’ accepted just fine, huh! You’re a lot of fun, if ya feel like it. You should stick around.”

“I... don't have any immediate plans to leave,” Hanzo states, and feels reassured in that statement, perhaps much more than he’d expect.

“Well, that’s good!” Jesse exclaims, a joy so genuine Hanzo has to glare at him for a moment to figure out whether he isn't only hearing things. “Real good.”

There is a heat in Hanzo's cheeks that has nothing to do with the mild climate, or spending the evening gazing into the sun during his meditation - though in a way, he speculates, spending any period of time in McCree’s company  _ is _ a bit like staring directly into the sun.

“Thank you,” he says, not entirely sure why.

“What for?”

_ Being you? _ Is that a suitable answer? Hanzo can't come up with a better descriptor of his experience here - at every turn, it was McCree who would accept him, engage him, slowly and patiently knocking at his walls until they began to crumble brick by brick. And he didn't achieve it by disrespecting Hanzo's boundaries either, which might be the most astonishing thing of all - at some point during the past weeks, months, Hanzo himself has let him in.

But it is an affection he doesn't quite know how to voice yet, so for now, he will... yes, get a beer with the man, and hope to stay close to him in general-

“ _ Kuso _ .”

“What is it?” Jesse turns around, Hanzo having stopped mid stride.

“It’s... I forgot my tea set on the roof when I went to investigate the light.”

More laughter, and Hanzo finds himself smirking as well.

“Y’know, you might be the only person who can say shit like that and actually have it make sense,” Jesse guffaws.

“Do you not find your tea more delicious in great heights?” Hanzo shrugs, perfectly deadpan, but he feels something warm and tender unfurling in his chest when Jesse laughs some more.

“Wow,” he remarks, “you’re really wieldin’ that sense of humor like a weapon today, huh.”

“I think I’ll decide to take that as a compliment,” Hanzo smiles as well.

“A wise choice.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Oh, you’re... going, then?”

Hanzo marvels at how simply... irresistible, and yet hilarious, McCree appears, his momentary disappointment  _ so _ obvious in his face despite his attempts to hide it.

“I’ll simply pick it up and return,” Hanzo reassures him, “prepare that beer for us.”

“Oh... oh, yeah! Alright! Count on it,” Jesse grins, from ill-concealed chagrin to childish excitement in the blink of an eye, “meet you... say by the training rooms? Should be nice and secluded right now.”

“I’ll find you,” Hanzo nods.

“It’s a date.”

The smile on his face propels him forward as he dashes to the maintenance stairwell he’d climbed earlier that evening, taking the steps by two - he isn’t too used to feeling giddy, or this friendly for that matter. He also feels the inexplicable need to find Genji, perhaps tomorrow, and ask him about-

It’s more of an instinct than a visual confirmation, but he knows something is wrong the second he steps foot on that rooftop. The sky is perfectly clear and starry, the gentle, warm breeze carrying with it a soft reminder of the sea nearby... His tea set isn’t where he left it.

He walks to the edge of the roof slowly, assessing his surroundings - the base slumbers around him, silent, alight, not a single thing out of place, except for the tingling hairs on the back of Hanzo’s neck. Perhaps it fell off...

But there are no shards on the ground below, and Hanzo focuses from there on the horizon, but sees nothing but pitch black. The shimmer of red, he catches out of the corner of his eye, and his base instincts shriek,  _ evade. _

He ducks and jumps away from the dangerous edge, rolling forward, automatically reaching for his... dammit. His bow that he has left resting in his dormitory.  _ The one time he was complacent enough to abandon his weapon. _ Genji would find it ironic.

He jumps to his feet, assuming an offensive stance at the very least, and is greeted by death itself.

The mask is impossible to mistake for anything else, and for a precious second, Hanzo is paralyzed by sheer, primal dread he doesn’t remember feeling in years, decades - in the next, he makes to dodge to the right, to mislead and use his prosthetics to escape directly off the roof,  _ it will hold out... _ He doesn’t expect his enemy to expect  _ that. _

Before he knows it, he is suspended in thin air, feet off the ground, but no physical force holding him. It’s just... smoke. Bile rises in his throat, and a terrifying, weakening cold spreads through his bones. He attempts to struggle, but he has almost no control over his limbs.

“ _ Hey there, _ ” says the mask, “ _ you took something of mine. _ ”

Hanzo calls on the dragons, begs them to come, but he might as well be shouting into the void. Without his weapon, it would take... much more time and effort than he can spare right now, to summon them.

“It didn’t... belong to you in the first place,” he struggles to get the words out - it’s like his very lungs are filling with the black smoke, swirling everywhere around him like water. His stomach threatens to upend its contents.

“ _ Finders keepers, _ ” Reaper remarks, his voice like sandpaper on metal to Hanzo’s ears.

His consciousness flickers in and out - in a last, desperate attempt, he struggles to let his metal tiptoe reach the ground, kevlar screeching against concrete, his back arching with the effort... The black takes him, and it feels like drowning, a deafening hum in his ears, all air being knocked out of his lungs, and his heart straining to match the effort, threatening to burst from it.

“ _ Found you, so I’m gonna keep you for a while, if you don’t mind. _ ”

His last thought before he is out is spared, oddly enough, for a beer he will now never get to have, and the faint scent of cigarillo smoke and sea foam lingers long after everything else has gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yah like I said, what is world building? In here, no one has anything better to do than get prissy abt stolen guitars and drink tea on roofs 8D nah I hope you guys enjoyed it, I initially planned for the mchanzo bits to progress much quicker, but what can I say, they didn't agree. Next up, more insights into Gabe's emo bin bag life (love him ssshh)


	4. Chapter 4

He enters the garden, the sakuras in bloom. The melody is quiet, gentle, guides him down the path of smooth, flat stones, deeper into the undergrowth. He doesn't know what possessed father, letting Genji practice outside, but he has yet to decide whether he'll put a stop to it or not - he weighs every step, trying to stay as quiet as possible himself, and finds his brother sitting in the summer house by the pond, cradling his shamisen, eyes closed, concentrating, never noticing Hanzo approaching.

He has improved so much, Hanzo notes, watching his fingers dance across the strings - perhaps they will be able to play together soon...

"I know you're there, aniki."

Hanzo gasps, surprised - he was so certain he'd approached silently!

"You're not as sneaky as you think!" Genji laughs, eyes flying open, "come here, help me."

And Hanzo goes.

It's a thousand shards of a hundred different conversations, a hundred different occasions in which they sat together and Hanzo would correct Genji's fingers and tempo... A hundred different peaceful afternoons, all leaving a jumble of laughter and bickering now, like a recording of a moment frozen in time, long before their world came tumbling down. The melody always remains the same.

He comes to with it ringing in his ears and his brother's name on his lips, dry, hoarse, barely producing any sound. The memory of sakura blooms transforms into a memory of black smoke and the taste of rot, and he dry heaves and jumps to his feet, a rudimental fight or flight reflex, staggering, the fused metal of his prosthetics the only thing keeping him upright.

His eyes adjust to the darkness only reluctantly - he makes out the vague shapes of a surprisingly large room, bisected by a glass wall. On his side, there is only him and nothing else, three tall walls and the floor for comfort, but outside his confines, a row of machines, all clearly hard at work, beeps and flashes the occasional light, the screens alive with graphs and writings he cannot make out, and beyond all that, another cell much like his own, empty, perhaps just waiting for its inhabitant...

Hanzo tests the glass, pressing his palm against it, and half expects to receive a nasty electric shock for his trouble, but nothing to that effect happens - it's cold, and smooth, and without thinking twice, he presses his forehead against it, closing his eyes, forcing his scattered thoughts back in order.

He is alive: more than he dared hope for, after that encounter.

_ Found you, so I'm going to keep you for a while. _

So he is a prisoner - gives him time to think. Also gives him some purpose to his captor, but he'd prefer not to wait around to find out what that might be.

His weapon is back at the base - better than in the hands of the enemy, but still painfully useless to him.

The base... Surely they will notice him missing sooner or later, but he won't stake his life on their altruism - no, he is on his own here.

He investigates - runs his fingers over every single connection, glass fused with concrete, the door of the cell itself, hydraulically sealed, the hinges large, strong, the lock electric... Brute force will get him nowhere here.

As for his own body, there doesn't seem to be anything terribly out of the ordinary, except for the bitterness settled at the back of his throat, the nausea - his head throbs, nothing too surprising, and his legs could use some freedom from the prosthetics, but all in all, he is physically fit enough to last. The trials ahead, now that is a mystery.

His visitor comes when he is sat on the cold ground, legs crossed, finally able to attain some peace of mind, concentrating on breathing deep and slow, attempting to talk to the power within him that would assist him in calling upon his dragons without the use of his bow... All of that is interrupted by the jarring sensation of... too much presence, like being pressed up against complete strangers on public transport, air caught in his lungs and sweat breaking out on his brow - such is the power of his captor, and Hanzo wonders if he will always be able to sense him like this, if it might be a side effect of quite literally ingesting that strange, omnipresent black smoke... Nanobots, if Dr Ziegler's assumptions are correct. Well then.

Hanzo keeps his eyes shut, no need confirming what he already knows.

" _ Morning, _ " Reaper greets him, " _ looking a bit rough around the edges. _ "

Amusement softens the sharp intonations of his augmented voice. Hanzo doesn't dignify him with a response.

" _ Not a lot of people around here who need to eat, so sustenance will be a bit scarce, I'm afraid. We'll see how long you last, eh? _ "

Hanzo shifts slightly, pondering the option to take his prosthetics off entirely - it's tempting, there will be some chafing if he doesn't. Who knows how long the enemy plans on chatting him up instead of actually inflicting some pain, though.

" _ No questions, then? No queries about my evil plans? No how could you's? _ "

Hanzo cracks one eye open, briefly.

There is no ethereal, shifting cloud of fog waiting for him outside the cell, just the figure of a man in a hood, however imposing and tall - or at least the mirage of one. Hanzo scoffs, closing his eyes again.

" _ Dios mio, you people are _ no fun  _ these days. _ "

"I gain nothing from engaging you," Hanzo offers coolly, his voice coming out coarse, forced to clear his throat afterward. He could really use a glass of water to wash the stench of death out of his mouth.

" _ Not even a bit of pleasant conversation? _ "

Hanzo inhales deeply and exhales slowly, laying his upturned palms on his knees, a calm, meditative position.  _ Can't teach an old dog new tricks, and all that. My meditation's always been a good smoke and a nap when it's least convenient... _

He smiles to himself, a warmer calm washing over him.

" _ Well. You really are a strange one. Wonder how many strings Genji had to pull to get the team to accept you. _ "

Hanzo's eyes flicker open quite unwittingly, something within him stirring without being called.

"Keep your brother's name out of my mouth."

" _ Hm. _ " the white mask is now inches away from the glass, unmoving and stern.  _ Menfukurou _ . The barn owl. A harbinger of death, not that Hanzo believes in any of that. " _ Kinda interesting, when you think about it - that he'd let you this close after what you did to him. But that's Genji for you, always so altruistic. So forgiving. _ "

Hanzo squeezes his eyes shut, straining to keep the rising annoyance at bay. The attempt to play him is clear as day, and yet where his brother is concerned, Hanzo is still too susceptible, too weak. It's infuriating, and apparently too obvious.

"You know nothing about him," he growls.

" _ See, that's where you're wrong. _ " The smile is  _ audible _ . " _ Come to think of it, I might know much more than you do. Aw, yeah, I remember how much he protected you when he first enlisted. Told us the story of what you did to him, and wouldn't let us track you down.  _ There is still good in him _ , he always used to say. _ "

Hanzo laughs, weak and coarse, but at least it achieves his desired goal, shutting Reyes up - Reaper.  _ There is nothing of him left _ . Out of respect for McCree, and the rest, Hanzo will no longer think of him as Gabriel Reyes, then. A vicious, malignant wraith wearing the face of a man long gone.

"If you're trying to torture me psychologically, you have failed preemptively," he states, stretching his arms, his back, languorously, a clear insult. "You don't know absolutely anything about either of us, and you can't use him against me, in any capacity."

Not entirely true, but if they are to play this game, Hanzo might as well start concentrating on his moves.

" _ We'll see _ ," the mask declares, " _ we'll sit tight and wait for him to come for you - things should get interesting after that. _ "

Hanzo's laughter is a bit more genuine now, albeit a bit more painful as well.

"You're operating under the assumption that they will let him come rescue me."

" _ Ah, now, that's where you're wrong - I'm operating under the assumption that they will  _ all _ come rescue you. _ "

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint there," Hanzo smirks, "I'm not quite important enough to waste resources on."

" _ Which only goes to show _ ," Reaper sighs, smoke now seeping underneath the glass and inching closer to Hanzo, " _ which one of us knows nothing about Overwatch. _ "

It is something primal and uncontrollable that forces Hanzo to jump to his feet when the black threatens to wrap around his ankles, and his throat is suddenly dry, the nausea returning in droves. Reaper laughs, quiet and dry, and yet oddly silky and rich.

" _ Haven't you heard? _ " he purrs, " _ nobody gets left behind. It's pathetic. _ "

-

Well, he supposes there are worse things than going to sleep pissed, and feeling kind of stupid. Waiting for Hanzo with opening a beer turned into opening it anyway, turned into drinking a second, then a third one, then giving up.

Maybe he should have seen it coming, he tells himself the next day, kind of reluctant to crawl out of bed - maybe he was too dumb to realize he was being too forceful again. Shit. He really thought they'd been getting along pretty well, though. Maybe he never should have hoped... Ah, fuck it.

He isn’t twenty anymore, gotta deal with it like an adult. He's going to whip himself into shape, put on a nice shirt, and ask Hanzo to forgive him for being such an insensitive doofus, and could they maybe still get that beer at some point...?

How did he get himself into this mess again? He can't help but wonder, sitting around the breakfast table with everyone willing to get up before lunch on a sunday - which is not a lot - and desperately trying not to look like he's guarding the door for one particular person to appear.

Out of all the newcomers to Overwatch - and, again, there's a lot - Jesse never would have expected to be the most intrigued by the long lost brother of one of his best friends, a tiny, short-fused,  _ deadly _ archer with the audacity to walk around with half his chest showing, like everyone will just decide not to stare at the mountain of toned muscle and the beautifully detailed tattoo running all the way down to the...

Alright, fine, beside the point.

The point being, Jesse got stood up, and it shouldn't be affecting him, and he shouldn't be daydreaming about romantic beachside date nights with short angry Japanese men, but here he is, and there Hanzo... isn't. Still.

"Does your brother usually sleep in?" Jesse inquires, and Genji shoots him  _ a look _ \- technically speaking, he only has  _ one _ look, but Jesse has known him for far too long not to be able to distinguish his facial features, even now, with the distinct lack of a face and features, beyond metal and a green visor.

"That depends," Genji shrugs, "did you give him a reason to stay up late?"

"How do you -  _ god dammit _ , it ain't like that!"

"Whatever you say."

The laughter is audible in Genji's voice as he turns away, concentrates on his breakfast - it technically isn't his breakfast, since he can barely process, like, lab-engineered mush, from what Jesse understands, but he still enjoys spending time with the others, and cutting up fruits for the table, or making eggs, or brewing tea...

"Would you  _ like it _ to be like that?" he utters, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Jesse kicks him under the table, which, considering he's kicking actual metal, probably not his brightest idea.

"Don't embarrass yourself," Genji offers calmly as Jesse writhes in pain, "he might walk in any second now."

"Hate you," Jesse hisses.

"Not possible."

Still, Hanzo is nowhere to be found, and... look, alright, Jesse has gotten used to him, he'll admit as much. It's not the way it used to be when he first came here, anymore. They wouldn't see him for days on end, and there was no forcing him to start socializing - he was secretive, reclusive, sometimes outright hostile, and it took... Jesse isn't entirely sure what it took. Patience, maybe. Day by day, Hanzo and him inched closer and closer, until hostility turned into the reluctant beginnings of what someone might be willing to call a friendship, and somewhere among all that, Jesse has gotten infected with... different feelings, ones that he doesn't really know how to process, so he just keeps trying to inspect them, and he can only do that with Hanzo actually around...

Dammit. Alright. Maybe it's just that Jesse can't really remember when last he liked someone. This could be a problem.

"Maybe I was too... you know? Maybe that was his quota for hangin' out for this week, I don't know. I just figured... Hrmm."

"Your inability to finish simple sentences has obviously only worsened in the years we haven't seen each other," Fareeha states, never tearing her gaze away from her workbench. "So has your understanding of your own emotions, it would seem."

"What do you mean," Jesse grumbles sadly, all but chewing through his cigarillo in his anguish.

Fareeha sighs.

"From the way you described the situation, I don't think he was planning on not showing up to your... date."

"Not a date."

"Whatever you say. My point is, find him, perhaps. Ask him. Be a gentleman. Maybe something happened to him that you don't know about."

"Like what?" Jesse perks up.

"What do I know?" she snorts, "perhaps someone else desperately desired his attention because they can't stop mooning over him and are fooling precisely no one."

"I'm sensing an attack on my person," Jesse glares.

"I might start a wager to see how long it takes you to ask him out."

"Oh, yeah, to match the one I have going on for you and Angela, yeah?" Jesse shoots back, and derives some satisfaction from seeing her squirm.

Still, talking to her always manages to make him feel better - there is some merit to knowing a person for the better half of your life, and Jesse has always considered her his second family, alongside her mother and Angela. They squabble and joke for a while longer, Fareeha working on her weaponry while Jesse works on his cigarillos, and by the time their morning rolls into noon, Jesse has more or less decided on... well, doing something, instead of just worrying about things going wrong.

The simple matter of the fact is, he has never met anyone like Hanzo - someone so unapologetic about his preferences, so particular about his ways, so unrelenting in his convictions. So determined. Jesse wishes he could be more like him, at times. He might be a big blundering fool of a cowboy instead, but by god, he is going to try and figure out what makes Hanzo tick, and if patience is the key, taking it slow and offering space, then take it slow he will.

...He'd have to find the man, first.

He doesn't turn up at lunch either, which, alright, sometimes he makes his own meals, but no one seems to have seen him all day. The training range is deserted, and so is the unofficial one, Hanzo's favorite spot to shoot, up on the roof of one of the abandoned warehouses a bit further away from the core of the compound. He hasn't clocked into any of the briefing rooms, either, and Jesse almost resorts to hollering his name in the hallways, until he meets Genji by the door to his brother's room.

"He didn't turn up at our usual meeting," Genji says simply, and the fact that he doesn't make a single witty remark about Jesse visiting Hanzo's quarters in broad daylight, only confirms Jesse's worries.

"No one's seen him all day," he offers, "I know he likes his privacy, but..."

Genji shakes his head, raises a fist to pound on the door. No answer.

"Hanzo!" he calls.

"We just wanna know if you're alright!" Jesse adds, feeling a bit awkward.

They listen for an answer, exchanging glances.

"Athena," Jesse remembers, "is Hanzo in his room?"

" _ That information is currently unavailable to me, _ " she answers, taking a couple seconds too long, and sounding unusually strained.

"What does that mean?" a strain of a different kind colors Genji's voice.

" _ Agent Hanzo's receiver hasn't been online since yesterday, 9:49 PM. _ "

"Wh- how is that possible?" exclaims Genji.

"Sometimes I switch it off for the night if I want some alone time," Jesse speculates, "we were about to grab a beer..."

"Oh, you were, were you."

"Shut up," Jesse half groans, half grins, "Athena, can't you track him? Where is he in the Watchpoint?"

" _ I am unable to track Agent Hanzo at this moment. _ "

"This is bullsh- okay, fine, open the door to his room, please?"

" _ Neither of you is authorized to enter Agent Hanzo's personal dormitory. _ "

"I'm honestly feeling so attacked today," Jesse groans, while Genji mutters something unsavory in Japanese.

"C'mon, Athena, darling," Jesse sweet-talks the AI, "we're kind of worried here. Probable cause, and all that? Eh? No?"

"I don't think she's listening anymore, Jesse," Genji sighs, preoccupied with checking around the edges of the door, as if there is some magical switch hidden somewhere that is going to open it for them.

"Who's badmouthing my AI?" Winston chimes in over the comms.

"Hey! Hey, uhh, we're having some trouble locating Hanzo," Jesse rolls his eyes while Genji makes hand gestures at him he can't understand, "and according to Athena, his receiver went offline yesterday night."

"Yeah, hold on... Yeah, I see it here. Hasn't been reactivated since."

"Nobody has seen him all day," Genji supplies tightly.

"Alright, uhh, let me see... Well. He hasn't exited the compound, we would have registered that. But he hasn't clocked into his room either..."

"Can. You. Locate him," Jesse demands.

"Nope," Winston replies simply, "he refused a biometric tracker, remember? Athena is a bit strained with the security updates at the moment-"

"So she would have failed to notice a security breach?" Genji points out mildly.

"Absolutely not. There hasn't been one in weeks."

"Alright, this is a load of bull," Jesse groans, "there's got to be a way to find him somehow!"

"Settle down," Genji says softly, and they can hear Winston sighing over the comms.

"Why don't you come over to the command center," he grumbles, "you can scour the cameras and long range scanners by yourselves, if you really think he's missing."

Jesse deflates.

"Well, maybe he's just..."

"Let's go," Genji interrupts him, and that's all the confirmation Jesse needs - they will take this seriously.

Winston is grouchier than usual, a lot of his computers a disemboweled mess of wiring and components, but he lets them sort through the security camera feeds all the way from yesterday - it's odd, Jesse notes silently, seeing the base from this angle, from behind a screen, everyone moving about their business so casually, unscripted and yet almost movie-like. There's their group leaving the training range, everyone congratulating Jesse on his good shot, there's the kids playing Lucio's heavily updated version of football later, there's Reinhardt and Torbjorn squabbling over making dinner like an old married couple, there's Ana and Jack going...

"Where the heck are they going?" Jesse mutters, but Genji waves him off.

"Look."

It's Hanzo, emerging from his room on his own, and the timestamp fits - they follow him, switching from camera to camera, as he makes his solitary way to the kitchen, preparing himself a thermos kettle full of tea, which he then carries... Almost out of range, until he climbs an abandoned maintenance stairwell.

"The roofs," Genji nods, and Jesse cocks an eyebrow, fiddling around with the security system for a bit until they finally have an aerial view of the rooftops, courtesy of the cameras on the comm towers, and the walls surrounding the Watchpoint.

"There he goes," he points at a small, nimble figure dashing across the largest rooftop, directly above the heart of the compound - they zoom in, and it occurs to Jesse that Hanzo looks almost like he's enjoying himself. There's no reason for running across the rooftops like a maniac, and yet he does so, his golden scarf fluttering behind him, until he is on the very edge, sitting down, and assuming a calm, meditative position.

They speed up ahead - to Jesse's astonishment, he spends close to two hours like that, before he shifts even the slightest bit, and pours himself a cup of tea... Only to stand up abruptly mere seconds later and glare at the horizon, out of their sight, unflinching, entire body taut, like a statue.

"He ran into me on the beach, babbled about seeing something out there on the far shore... whoa!" Jesse's explanation of last night's events is cut short when Hanzo surprises them by bolting, jumping off the roof in one fluid motion and disappearing.

"Do we have a camera on the beach?" Genji wonders.

"Only the loading bay I think... You know what?" Jesse points out, "let's stick with this one. We talked for a bit, couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, and then we were about to go back to get that beer, only he... Well, he said he'd forgotten his tea set on the roof. Or something to that... effect."

Genji stares, and Jesse can feel the cogs turning.

"Alright," he says at last, "speed up a bit?"

Jesse does... And the screen flickers, nothing but a blink of black, like a faulty transmission, and when the visual is restored, the timestamp in the corner has jumped ahead a whopping thirty minutes.

"Well, won't you look at that," Jesse leans back in his chair.

"I'd call  _ that _ a security breach," Genji says, the displeasure evident in the tone of his voice.

"What are we seeing?" Winston shouts from the other side of the room, all but buried in computer parts.

"You should really come take a look," Jesse calls after him, while Genji demands: "Try other cameras covering that area."

But the glitch remains the same on all of them - at 9:23, the screen blinks an unforgiving, bleak black, and jumps ahead to 9:54, seemingly nothing changing on the rooftops the cameras cover. The stars still twinkle, the sea breeze still plays with the resilient pines behind the Watchpoint's walls.

"When did Athena say Hanzo's receiver shut off?" Genji asks quietly, and a chill dances down Jesse's spine.

" _ 9:49 _ ," the AI is suddenly responsive again.

"Fuckin' hell," Jesse utters.

Twenty minutes later, the rest of the team is being briefed, and a perimeter set up - they scour the base all over again, leaving no stone unturned, and Jesse and Genji aim high. It isn't often that Jesse finds himself taking a stroll on the rooftops, but he does remember coming here several times when he was younger, either for the thrill of it, or to dodge his boss... Anger still makes his blood boil whenever he thinks of Reyes, of... of what's left of him, like a shadow, a ghost of his former self, a bad computer simulation wearing a borrowed face.

He doesn't necessarily think Reaper had anything to do with this... But then he remembers the reclaimed guitar sitting in his room, and starts thinking differently.

_ Sentiment is like a plague _ , Reyes always used to say to him, and Jesse would always laugh, because if anyone suffered for it too much, it was the very man who used to know the name of every single subordinate's family member, kept and personally delivered the dog tags of those who died, played... Played his guitar for anyone who would listen, and sat Jesse himself down one day and, the same way he'd taught him discipline in many other things, he showed him how to tame the sharp strings and the aged wood to sound exactly the way he wanted...

_ It's all in the wrist, vaquero. Come on, you know how to handle a gun, this should be easy for you... _

Jesse swears under his breath, but his train of thought is fortunately interrupted by Genji waving him over.

"What're we lookin' at?" Jesse saunters over, the ninja crouching, one finger tracing what looks like a long, thin scorch mark on the concrete.

"Difficult to tell," Genji admits, and Jesse can sense the tension in his every movement.

"Hey," he offers, "we're gonna find him."

"I have no doubt," Genji answers, and for once, the bright green of his visor offers no opportunity to read what he really thinks.

“Come on,” Jesse beckons him, “we’re wasting time here. The others will let us know if they find anything. Let’s go check out that horizon.”

 

He was right before - there is nothing but rocks on the far side of the basin, though it is a nice, albeit a bit jumpy, drive, the wheels of their jeep sending red dust swirling in broad spirals upward, nothing but twisted cacti and the occasional lizard skitting by lighting fast keeping them company.

"Could have been anything," Jesse shields his eyes, glaring at the unchanging scenery of desert sand, "a radio tower further inland, hell, a plane taking off... He wasn't exactly specific."

Genji remains silent, eyes glued to the ground, searching for any sign of... well, anything, really. Trotting ahead, until the air shimmers with the heat around him like a mirage, he waves Jesse over.

"Tire tracks," he notes, two flat, uneven lines leading past where they stand.

"We can't be the first truck here," Jesse scratches the back of his neck.

"It leads into the undergrowth," Genji ignores him, instead fixating on the spinney of half-scorched pines ahead, "let's go."

Jesse follows him obediently, lighting a cigarillo as they march, keeping any observations that aren't search-related to himself - he's known Genji far too long not to recognize when he has singlemindedly decided to see something through. It is with a lot of fondness that he recalls their younger selves, always sparring, always making bets, always laughing together. What had happened to Genji was nothing but a bitter footnote in his file then, but Jesse still remembers all their talks, all their reminiscing and their anger - in a way, it wasn't until Jesse himself lost his arm, that Genji, through supporting him, started coming to the realization that his heavily augmented body was something to be accepted, rather than shunned...

He never talked about his brother much before that, but then he came back one day, returned out of the blue after a year spent in Nepal with the omnics, and he was so different. Nothing about his sense of humor, about his gall, had changed, but he was also so much more at peace, driven, happy... And he started mentioning Hanzo.

_ I have to see him again, Jesse. I need to tell him that I've forgiven him. _

Jesse wonders if Hanzo knows, if he is even capable of accepting it - if he's ever met the walking talking definition of being too hard on yourself, Hanzo would be it, and Jesse... Jesse looks ahead at Genji, climbing rock formation after rock formation, all but turning every single pebble over in hopes of finding a lead, like a bloodhound chasing a scent, and he figures that there are some things he shouldn't meddle in. Hanzo and Genji's slowly mending relationship is their own to figure out, and he can only assist with making sure they have even more opportunities to do that.

"I smell smoke," his own senses interrupt his overthinking, "do you smell smoke?"

"What?"

"Come on."

The air isn't any less suffocatingly hot when they enter the grove - Jesse didn't even wear his full gear and he's already craving a shower and a cold beer. The path marked by nothing but sun-scorched grass patted down by whatever animal can survive here, leads them up a slight slope, Genji jogging up effortlessly, while Jesse is soaking with sweat by the time they climb it. A small clearing spreads before them - the remnant of a pre-century electric pole rots in the center of it, next to a small, rusting shed, probably hiding a long-unused petrol generator, or some such relic. The smell is definitely stronger, though he is no longer sure it's actually smoke. Besides, he doesn't remember ever coming here back when-

"Movement, left," Genji hisses, and in the blink of an eye, he's gone - anyone else would accuse him of only fending for himself, but Jesse and him have worked like this for ages, the gun dispensing damage up close, while the sword covers the flank, striking out when least expected.

Jesse draws Peacekeeper in one fluid movement, keeping his back to the shed, scanning his surroundings, the downward slope to where they came from, where Genji had noticed something. He hears nothing but the buzzing of insects, a gentle breeze hissing in the treetops, bringing no relief at all, to be honest...

"When are you finally gonna learn to aim in the right direction, cowboy?"

His senses freeze into a standstill as something cold and metallic presses into the small of his back, where he decidedly isn't wearing any armor. Genji should already be slicing the enemy's throat open by now...

"Jesus, pocket that damn firecracker before you give yourself an aneurysm," the anonymous intruder growls, and Jesse's hair stands on edge.

"Jack?!"

He is permitted to turn around  _ without _ getting his spine blown apart by a plasma rifle, and it is Jack, the bright red of his visor glaring unfriendly, but somehow reassuring. Still, Jesse can't shake the feeling that he's missing something.

"The hell are you doing here?"

"Old habits die hard," his former Commander replies somewhat cryptically, then, louder, "it's fine, Genji, I'm not planning on turning coat now, you can come out."

Jesse watches as the ninja reappears in between the twisted tree trunks, and the short glance they exchange reaffirms him in thinking that not everything is right here. He remembers seeing Jack with Ana on the camera feed earlier, disappearing into...

"Are you two planning on just standing around all day?" Jack prods at them, all gruff amusement, "come on."

" _ Where _ are we going?" Jesse inquires, never letting go of his colt, and Genji and him watch suspiciously as Jack makes his way to the unassuming shed, testing the door, and when it doesn't yield, simply kicking it open.

"Back in the day," Jack starts broadly, waiting by the open door, as if he's inviting them in for a lovely afternoon of squash and lemonades, "we liked to make sure our exit strategies extended beyond security lockdowns, and whatever Winston deemed strategically logical. Reyes and me had several tunnels built just in case everything else went to hell - this is the exit of one of them. We never showed it to many people, security reasons and all that. Funny how irony tends to kick your ass, huh?"

"So you do think it was Reyes - Reaper, who took Hanzo," Jesse doesn't pose it as a question. He doesn't need to.

"We'll see. Come on."

Activating a flashlight on his rifle, Morrison leads the way inside - the air is even heavier here, the smell of smoke stronger, transforming into something equally as sweet and stinging, but more along the lines of... rot, maybe. They watch as Jack kicks aside a handful of old empty boxes, then crouches down and lifts a lid that was almost invisible to them up until that point.

"Recently used," he grumbles, more as a note to himself, then turns over his shoulder, "Amari and me found the Watchpoint side of it untouched the other day, and when we saw the footage today... Can't imagine how anyone would get around undetected so fast. Ana will meet us in the middle, provided we don't run into any obstructions."

"Does it lead underwater?" Jesse asks, shifting his weight from one leg to the other a bit nervously.

"No, around the shore."

"Oh, good, so we're  _ not _ gonna drown in some half-assed emergency shaft."

Jack laughs, rough and dry, and lowers himself into the entrance, his voice gaining an ominous echo now: "You scared of kicking it all undignified in your old age? Get moving."

"That's rich, coming from someone who survived their own funeral," Jesse affords himself a bit of annoyed disobedience as he descends into the murder shaft, much less gracefully than Jack, and infinitely much less gracefully than Genji, who lands next to him almost soundlessly.

"Watch your mouth," Morrison scolds him, but there is no true venom in it.

"This is the most we've talked in ten years," Jesse utters to Genji, who chuckles - they've both been giving their former Commander a wide enough berth, but there's no denying it's good to have him back, in whatever capacity. As for the ghost of Reyes past that he seems to have dragged with him, now that is another matter entirely.

Not much else is said after that - Morrison leads the way at a tempo which suggests he's expecting to find something, and Jesse concentrates on the bluish glow emitting from his flashlight, not particularly fond of utter darkness such as this. His only comfort is the light breeze cooling his cheeks every now and then, reminding him that there is a way out, somewhere ahead.

"Do you hear that?" Genji announces, after ten minutes or an hour of marching, it's a bit difficult to tell, and they all stop, and listen - nothing but their heartbeat and the occasional distant waft of air thrums in their ears, and eventually, they are forced to concede that Genji's robotically enhanced hearing has caught something Jesse and Morrison simply can't, not yet.

He  _ is _ sure he heard something, though,  _ is _ hearing it still, in fact, and so they pick up pace, stomping down the arid tunnel towards an uncertain goal.

"Is that...?" Jack halts them with one fist raised, Jesse and Genji both stopping dead, their ancient instincts kicking in astonishingly quickly.

"Sounds like a melody," Jesse remarks, and Genji only responds with an unhappy little sound, unsheathing his katana as they proceed.

The tunnel slopes slightly upward, the air becoming fresher, and before long, they can see the dim glimmer of some distant light source - it turns out to be an old circular railing in the ceiling, several of them in a row in fact, and Jesse tries to recall where that actually is around the base. They must be closer now, and the melody becomes more recognizable...

"Is that Stevie friggin' Wonder?" Jesse squints.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Jack mutters under his breath, and, to their surprise, breaks off in a run - they follow him soon enough, and find him glaring at... it's difficult to tell what it is. A small recording device of some sort sits on the ground directly in the middle of the wobbly circle of daylight provided by yet another railing, and Genji, Jesse and Jack crowd around it, a moment frozen out of time as they stare completely silently, while it plays an almost forgotten oldies song, the quality questionable to say the least.

"What the hell is this?" Jesse's hand is sweating as it grips Peacekeeper.

"Reyes," Jack exhales, nothing but grim acceptance in his voice.

"Morrison!" comes a call from far up ahead.

"Amari," Jack exhales, then shouts back: "Hey! We're here! Found it!"

She comes running surprisingly soon - Jesse is losing track of time and distance, it would seem - and the second she lays eyes on the... transceiver, whatever it is, the disgusted horror in her face becomes so apparent that even Jesse is taken aback. She's rarely this out of sorts, always steely stern, always calm... But then again, it's been years. Ages.

"Jack," she sighs.

"I know."

"What's going on?" Genji demands, "does this tell us anything?"

"I know where he took Hanzo," Morrison states calmly.

"Well, fuck, that's good!" Jesse exclaims, "where? Let's go!"

"It's too late," Amari says quietly, and in hindsight, Jesse should have recognized the tone of her voice - should have started being afraid right there and then.

"Why? What's going on?"

_ When I recall what we had _

_ I feel lost, I feel sad... _

"The song's ending," Jack says gruffly, as if it is any explanation whatsoever.

Then, light.

 

-

 

The settling dust almost looks like a blossom, heaving upward through the vent in a great swell, then spreading, falling slowly like a heavy golden cloud. Hanzo sits completely motionless, flinching only imperceptibly when the explosion happens, the screen flickering slightly - the drone providing 'tonight's entertainment', in Reaper's words, doesn't come with sound, and so it is like watching a particularly morbid grotesque.

It is only when the recording sizzles and dies, that Hanzo realizes his heart is hammering against his ribcage, despite his best attempts to remain perfectly calm - the sight of his brother, of McCree, of the others, crowding around what he knew was going to blow and they didn't, is still burned into his retinas, the grainy transmission of their faces arguing, the concern in McCree's and the realization in Morrison's...

He feels a powerful, unbridled fury stirring within him, but he chains it, doesn't let it loose just yet - it could have been a recording, a fake designed to unsettle him, a simple scare tactic, anything. Anything but the truth.

"I thought your goal was for  _ all of them _ to come here," he says out loud, pleased with his voice coming out even, more or less.

" _ Eh, you know, _ " Reaper's voice comes to him through a comm, but no less chilling, " _ guess I just enjoy putting on a show. _ "

It hasn't even been twenty four hours. He hasn't eaten in longer than that, and his last drink was that fateful tea atop the Watchpoint's rooftop, but he hasn't been harmed yet, and his mind, though clouded with anger right now, remains clear, his willpower not wavering one bit. All in all, surprisingly solid odds, given the situation.

His captor's goal hasn't become any clearer, though, and Hanzo can't help but glare at thin air, where the holographically projected screen hovered mere moments ago.

_ The song's ending... _

And four people, trapped in an abandoned tunnel far away from their home base, with barely any means of escape...

Hanzo inclines his head. Hm.

" _ So _ ," Reaper's incessant hissing interrupts his train of thought, " _ ready for a walk? _ "

Hanzo smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, hahahhhhh you know what, this fic DID start with a cute little headcanon me and my friend had about Jesse playing guitar, and somehow it has escalated into... this. DON'T ASK ME HOW. This is a bit of a transition chapter which I SWEAR TO GOD wasn't even supposed to be there, Hanzo wasn't supposed to be captive for more than one chapter... But here we are. The good thing is I do have an ending which to strive towards, so hopefully we'll get there... At some point...


	5. Chapter 5

_"Been here a week now, and there's still dust all over you, cabron. Don't make me wash you down with a garden hose."_

_Cussing out his new 'commanding officer', because he hates the term, hates to think that this is what he will be now, a pawn, a soldier, and earning himself a smack on the head and the only threat that ever worked on him back then, and Reyes knew it._

_"Take a shower, or you're eating your stupid desert dust for dinner."_

_Washing highly reluctantly, the water coloring a faint clay red. The last remnants of Route 66 trickling down the drain, and Jesse watching it numbly, feeling powerless. But the shower helped._

_"There you go, looking vaguely human," Reyes had commended him for his efforts, "now come on. You're meeting some people over dinner."_

_Sitting among far too many clean, posh white people for his liking, unable to just dig into his food like he otherwise would have done, and feeling their eyes on him, too strict, too judging. Scratching behind his ear, raking his hand through his hair, feeling like the red dust had stuck to every inch of him anyway, despite the shower._

_That particular feeling never really went away._

It takes him a while to identify the familiar taste in his mouth - right, dust. Sticking to his tongue, his throat, his lungs, suffocating him quite effectively. He coughs, once, twice, willing his other senses to cooperate. Sight, a bit tricky - everything is dark, golden dashes of dim light flickering in and out, and focusing is out of the question for now. Smell - now, yeah, he's had a close call with far too many explosives in his life to mistake that stinging stench for anything else. Hearing... Well, the ringing in his ears is inevitable as well, he can only pray his eardrums aren't busted.

Moving is a herculean effort, every bone in his body creaking like old wood, and there's a pounding ache to his left temple - he expects the blood even before he touches it and it soaks into his glove.

He's pretty sure he swears, but his head registers it only very faintly. A little ways to his left, rubble shifts - instincts kick into gear, and he forces his bruised body to cooperate, soon pulling a similarly bruised Amari to her feet.

She's telling him something, but he scowls apologetically, pointing to his ears - she rolls her eyes, nods, cracks her back. Genji is found soon after, battered but in one piece, surprisingly unscathed in fact.

Morrison seems to have suffered the brunt of the explosion - _get back, out of the way_ , Jesse remembers him roaring, tossing the bomb away at the very last second, always so stupidly... ugh, brave. Doing the right thing, no matter how dangerous, when all the rest of them could do nothing but stare.

A quick scan of their surroundings reveals that the tunnel has prolapsed on both sides, effectively trapping them here, if it weren't for the collapsed ceiling as well, the last of the day's sunlight bathing the rubble in rich hues of orange.

They climb out laboriously, mostly with the help of Genji, who is in the best shape out of the four of them, jumping up on the surface more or less effortlessly and pulling their weight.

"Fuck," Jack swears the second he's standing again, and hey, Jesse's hearing is back - just in time to hear the broken crackle of Morrison's visor, almost split in half.

He simply tosses it, running his hand down his face - Jesse has seen it before, but it still makes chills dance up his spine, the scars as if someone had dragged a claw right across it, the familiar features steeled by years of... Jesse can only guess at the scope of his anger, but it's readable pretty well in his face now.

"Can't see worth shit without it," Jack complains, pale blue eyes squinting.

"Aren't we supposed to be dead?" Jesse remarks eloquently, checking Peacekeeper over, fortunately more or less unscathed.

"No," Jack groans, tending to his weapon as well.

"It is unlike Reyes to tell us exactly what we want to know, and then _not_ kill us for it," Ana remarks, dusting her long coat off, inquiring with nothing but a tilt of her head, a gesture or two, about Genji's state - the ninja remains unusually quiet. "Let's go back to the base. We could all use some medical help."

"Can't," Jack says simply.

"Why?" Jesse whines, "it's _right there_ , let's go. I need a beer."

"Think," Morrison turns to him abruptly, and Jesse almost ends up taking an involuntary step back, not quite enough time to reacquaint himself with his former Commander glaring at him.

"What...?"

"What do you do," Jack says slowly, as if he's accommodating a student in a class, "if you want to send the enemy a clear message. If you want them to know you're _holding the reins_ , cowboy. He wanted us here for a reason. Away from the base. Basically feeding us info."

"He couldn't have known-" Jesse tries - his head is still pounding, and he feels like he's missing something - a big something, burning a hole in his skull.

"Nobody knew about this tunnel, save me and Amari," Morrison reminds him, almost gently, "nobody would have listened to _a stupid song_ and known where to look next, save me. Think. It's still him, deep down. Still the old Reyes."

"Where is he keeping Hanzo?"

That's Genji, demanding sternly, a cold in his voice - Jack ignores him completely, staring at Jesse still. He hasn't noticed this before, but there is a pearly sheen covering his irises, like a fog, an opalescent veil, no doubt the result of his injuries - makes him look half dead already. Jesse swallows, hard and dry.

"Still the same old," Jack repeats, quieter.

_The taste of dust. Reyes towering next to him, his grip on his shotgun so much steadier than Jesse's on his comparably so much smaller colt, the two of them supposed to be scouring the future battlefield ahead, but Jesse has trouble. When Reyes talks, he has come to discover, it's better to watch him - a lot of meanings escape you when you ignore his face, and only listen to his words._

_"If you think the enemy is stupider than you by default," Reyes doesn't need to tell him to listen, he just does, "then you're dead even before you step foot in the battle. But if you show them how smart you really are, then you're, poof, dead too."_

_Handling his massive gun with such an ease, swinging it around like it's a damp towel, he somehow encompasses the entirety of the ruins of the abandoned city before them._

_"Make them think you're stupid - you're unprepared, you don't have plan, if your strategy fails, you're doomed. Then watch them dance into your crosshairs."_

_"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" Jesse grumbles, and gets dry laughter for his efforts._

_"How do you think? Show them something, but never enough. Let them think they have the upper hand, then drive a fist in their faces when they're least expecting it."_

_Jesse churns it over, glares at Reyes, then at the field of rubble in front of them, dust swirling in lazy spirals around the skeletons of buildings, then back at Reyes._

_"Can it be a gun, instead of a fist, though?"_

_Reyes laughs some more, slapping his back heftily enough to make him stagger forward._

_"Yeah, it can be anything you damn well please, vaquero. Just never let them see it coming."_

"He wants us to come to him," Jesse exhales, seeing clear for the first time, the bitter taste of blood in his mouth subsiding, replaced by the steely grit of anger. "He never wanted us dead. He wanted us to find him all along."

"We gotta go now," Jack nods.

"And walk into a trap?" Amari exclaims, "come on, we have zero resources, your vision is compromised, I'm pretty sure I need something for the pain in my back..."

"Can't," Jack repeats, the same determination, "he's probably watching as we speak. Wants a show of it. If we alert the others, his entire brilliant idea goes up in flames."

"No," Jesse says firmly, surprising even himself.

"No?" Morrison turns to him, incredulous.

_Never let them see it coming._

"It's the Blackwatch handbook, that's for sure," Jesse says, "but whatever's... left of Reyes, doesn't want to play by our rules anymore. It's too easy. Come on. I've got a better idea. I'll explain on the way."

 _Sorry, Hanzo_ , he thinks to himself as he leads them, against all odds, back towards the base, _just gotta hang in there a while longer_.

-

" _Interesting_ ," Reaper hisses.

"Not quite what you expected?" Hanzo mutters absentmindedly, scouring every dark corner of the room for a possible escape route - he has some confidence he could knock out the two guards securing him even with his hands behind his back, but after that, he needs to run, and know where he's running in the first place. He doesn't suppose he's getting an opportunity like this every day - doesn't even know why he was granted it today. If Reaper aims to subvert his morale by making him watch his own botched attempts at attacking his friends, then it is a tactic Hanzo has never had to endure before, and it's proving to be quite hilarious, as much room as there is for laughter here.

" _Quite the contrary_ ," Reaper purrs, Hanzo freezing when he moves, that unnatural swirl and slide of something akin to smoke, but much more controlled, much more ominous. " _Typical Overwatch. Typical cowboy_."

Hanzo's blood boils, fists clenching in their confines.

"You wanted them to survive."

Reaper seems unperturbed.

" _Always more fun to watch them squirm. Remind me, does your brother enjoy being outwitted?_ "

Hanzo barks a laugh, hoarse, humorless, taking a step forward just to gauge the reaction of the guards - their guns are cocked immediately, digging into his back. Hm.

"You will have equally little luck trying to break me _or_ Genji," he scoffs.

_If anyone is more at peace out of the two of us, it's definitely him._

" _Yes, I forget, he's the meditative one. Well, it doesn't look like they'll be mounting a rescue effort any time soon, I suppose we can... how would that ingrate say it? Take a breather._ "

Hanzo recognizes all too well that he now means McCree, instead of his brother, and his curiosity almost gets the better of him, he almost asks what all of this is about - but the very next second, twin guns jabbing into his lower back prod him into action, and they are walking again, someplace.

Still, Hanzo's curiosity grows with each door they pass as he is led away from what surely couldn't have been the main security center of the lair - no, probably more along the lines of a glorified broom closet - and nobody seems to be in a hurry to start extracting any information, or blood for that matter, from him. It is, above all, confusing, and the possibility of there being a deeper meaning behind it all keeps him vigilant.

This is hardly the first time he's ever been held captive, but it is the first time he is having some difficulties determining the motive behind it, or the goal his captor hopes to achieve.

Against all odds, he begins to recognize his surroundings somewhat - the corridors all look the same, cold, dark metal illuminated a lifeless blue by stripes of LED lights on the ceilings and lining the floors, but he spent some time scouring the place when he was first here. It is reassuring indeed to realize that it _is,_ in fact, the very same lair that hides, among many much more horrendous things no doubt, what Hanzo has decided to refer to as Reaper’s room of secret oddities - and indeed, it turns out that that is exactly where they’re headed.

To Hanzo’s mild surprise, his guards lead him inside, following Reaper, and then leave him, the heavy door falling shut behind them. The room is even darker than he remembers it, and Reaper is distorted again, almost as if his way of relaxing constitutes of not concentrating on keeping his physical form solid, but rather dissipating into the fog that unsettles Hanzo so.

He tests his confines again - the ventilation duct that served as his entrance _and_ means of escape the first time is a good twenty feet away, and between it and Hanzo stands the ghost, of course.

“ _I think perhaps I may have overestimated you,_ ” Reaper offers, almost conversationally, “ _when you first resurfaced, you seemed such promising material. But then I find you here, stealing a dingy old guitar out of what? Sentiment? What a plague._ ”

“ _You_ are going to lecture me about _sentiment?_ ” Hanzo scoffs, circling him ever so slowly, every step a risk. “You’re the one who kept the guitar in the first place. And all of _this?_ I wouldn’t exactly use it as proof of your cold heart.”

Reaper shifts almost imperceptibly, and Hanzo stills - it’s like a particularly odd game of tag in slow motion. No matter - whatever game it may be, two can certainly play at it.

“Needless keepsakes,” Hanzo accuses him, continuing to move towards the center of the room so that should an attack come, he’d have the chance to evade it in a direction that would get him closer to his escape route, however improbable.

“They told me about you,” he continues, “the respect you still command, even after everything you’ve done to them... completely unfounded, when all any of you can amount to is clinging to the past.”

“ _Says the man who spent a decade trespassing in his former home time and time again, just for a ridiculous ritual to honor the brother he’d murdered. Told you. A plague._ ”

“Are you trying to say you and I are not so different?” Hanzo smirks. He can see it now, barely there, the outline of a dent in the ceiling - his chance.

Reaper’s laughter is like sandpaper across a chalkboard - Hanzo chooses that exact moment to lunge forward, timing his forward roll so that he nearly but never quite dislocates his shoulders to end up with his hands in front of him for once, jumping to his feet unhindered, draining his momentum for all its worth to get him closer, closer to the other side of the room...

The smoke tugs at his ankles almost playfully, _did you happen to forget about me?,_ and he is sent flying forward, face against the floor. Well, it was worth a try - every attempt, certainly a failed one, gives him an idea of his opponent’s speed, at least.

“ _Not so different, indeed,_ ” Reaper drawls, and to his horror, Hanzo is dragged to his feet and off the ground - _not this again,_ his stomach protests.

“ _You are mistaken,_ ” Reaper is cackling now, Hanzo struggling in his invisible prison, gritting his teeth, shutting his eyes, keeping the smoke away from him if he can help it, “ _I don’t feel anything anymore - the others, all of_ you, _however... So easy to infect. Brought to your knees over_ keepsakes, _like you said, over old pictures, over_ music. _So ready to reveal your weaknesses. Won’t it be fun to use that against them?_ ”

“You’re speaking as if you’re expecting me to assist you,” Hanzo remarks, making his voice sound even proving to be a great effort.

“ _Why, I wouldn’t_ force you _to do anything,_ ” he can _sense_ the mask smiling, “ _I will, however, give you a simple choice. Either you_ do, _in fact, assist me, or-_ ”

“I choose death,” Hanzo spits before he can finish, “kill me.”

 _This_ laughter is genuinely amused, however much it still sounds like a rusty old engine being kickstarted back into life.

“ _Oh, I’m sorry to say that was never actually an option_ ,” Reaper says almost kindly.

“What?” Hanzo blurts out, losing track of the conversation - he didn’t expect that, he must admit. “What do you want from me?”

“ _They’re funny little assholes, these nanobots,_ ” Reaper explains conversationally, while an unearthly chill creeps up Hanzo’s spine along the black smoke, rendering him completely motionless, his heart hammering frantically somewhere in his throat. “ _I don’t think Doctor Ziegler actually accounted for... everything I’ve learned to do with them. But then again, she didn’t account for great many other things, hah. The point is, Shimada-san -_ ” it’s like being electrocuted directly in the spine, every nerve ending in his body exploding, only to leave behind a crippling, terrifying numbness, “ _\- being in more places at once is really just a question of... micromanaging. I know it’s not the most elegant solution, but a man has to watch his back. I have to make sure. This should be interesting..._ ”

His eyes fill with tears so quickly he loses all vision, and there is a great weight pushing down on his lungs, like he is drowning in thin air. The hum in his ears is deafening, like the roar of the sea in a storm, and he feels the smoke, the fog, the thousands of sentient beings the size of a speck of dust, intruding into every single cell of his body, taking over to an extent that he cannot possibly withstand, or hope to fight...

 

_“Dang, always so uptight. I expected some applause, at least! C’mon, did you like it?”_

_The guitar doesn’t look like an instrument in his hands - it’s like a part of a picture, like it’s always been there, always belonged to him, another limb, making him whole. Everyone else has left, having expressed their joy at finally hearing McCree play again - some of them for the first time - and Hanzo and him are alone now by the vast window overlooking the basin, and Hanzo doesn’t think he can confess that he spent the duration of the song staring at him, rather than paying attention to the music itself._

_“You are very skilled,” he opts for a diplomatic answer, and Jesse scoffs theatrically, assaulting the strings in a very dramatic crescendo, one that Hanzo recognizes from all of the generic tunes of the century-old westerns McCree has made him watch before._

_“_ Very skilled, _he says!” the cowboy exclaims, then, smiling to himself, fingertips searching for some sort of melody, “ooh, there once was a... grumpy archer...”_

 _“Do_ not _sing about me.”_

_“...Whose bow was... was large, but his ego larger...”_

_“Stop it!” Hanzo snaps, but his own laughter makes his voice crack, which only spurs Jesse on._

_“Yeah, he knew how to shoot, and he knew how to fight, but nobody taught him to be po-lite...”_

_“You are an idiot,” Hanzo declares, but the truth is, he can’t quite recall the last time he’d laughed out loud - the last time there was genuine warmth to be found in it._

_And the guitar keeps on strumming, and he thinks he will carry the sound of it with him wherever he goes now..._

 

The dragons come without being called, at last - he doesn’t remember them ever being this violent, like a tidal wave pushing forth with unrelenting force, like they will not allow themselves to be stopped, and take Hanzo with them in the process.

He roars alongside them, a wordless cry, scorching his throat, and the room fills with their blinding light, brighter, brighter, the deathly ghost of Reaper emitting an inhuman shriek, and Hanzo can feel a tug within him, like something is being ripped back out of his body, like his very heart is preparing to jump out, a battle between him and the foul, lurking stench that Reaper left behind...

He feels himself losing, and then he feels nothing at all.

 

-

 

He remembers it as if it were yesterday, Reyes bringing the kid - a scrawny, skinny little devil, covered in red dust and gang tattoos, swearing up a storm and threatening anything that moved, spending a week in solitary until he was at least fit enough to be taken for a tour of the base.

“What the hell are you thinking?” Jack had asked Gabriel, who only grinned, motioning with his head towards the security camera feed, where the boy was currently driving his fist against the bulletproof glass of his cell again and again, muttering in gritty, furious Spanish.

“Give him time,” Reyes had insisted, and a month later, McCree matched Amari’s accuracy rating at the training range, and taking him seriously became a necessity, despite... well, everything else about him shrieking otherwise.

Even now, the immediate sight of him makes Jack scoff, but it’s more of a warm comfort, really, than anything else - still the same old, still that dingy blanket around his shoulders, still that ridiculous hat and obscenely awful belt buckle... still him in all his cowboy glory, and Jack never would have expected to look at him and feel... reassured.

“You can’t just go in guns blazing, kid,” he reminds him gently, watching alongside everyone else as McCree paces the briefing room, a twitch to him that he never quite managed to tame, an uneasiness - he’s angry, and he’s worried.

“We gotta,” Jesse almost snaps at him, “we need to do this right, we gotta go big - there’s no beating him at his own game, he’ll single us out if we go sneakin’ around.”

“There’s also no convincing the UN to sanction an op like this so quickly,” Winston adds sourly.

“ _Screw_ the UN!” McCree spits, and Jack isn’t the only one to sigh raggedly - he exchanges a telling glance with Ana, who shrugs, rolls her eyes. They both know - if he wants something done his way, more often than not, the cowboy is almost sure to get it.

“We are on thin ice here, Jesse,” Angela adds, “everyone’s watching us, we can’t afford to slip up.”

“A _rescue mission_ is not a slip up,” McCree growls.

“It is when you deploy your entire team to go after one guy-”

“We are going after _Talon,_ this is entirely justifiable if you consider the big picture-”

“All the big picture does is get you into trouble!”

 

And so on, and so forth. They look to him for guidance, occasionally, but he can never bring himself to say more than a couple of words - he’d feel guilty, leaving them hanging like this, if he were capable of feeling anything more beyond a vague exhaustion.

The song repeats itself, an annoying droning buzz in his head wherever he goes, and the craving he sees in Jesse’s face, the anger, he can feel the same thrumming right underneath his skin. Go out there, plant a fist in one very particular face - although these days, what he’d probably get is said face dissipating into smoke before he could ever really land a hit...

He remembers Malaga all too well, as much as he wishes he didn’t - the sweltering heat, the splash of the sea, the clear sky, the precious few moments of relative solitude, relative safety. The blissfully cold stone walls of the small countryside home, and the painted guitar hanging on the wall, and the ancient radio sputtering and only playing oldies no matter how hard they’d tried to tune into something, anything else.

They’d danced to Stevie Wonder while Gabriel’s fajitas burned in the oven, and the memory of the flat terracotta tiles under his bare feet, and the sun pouring in, golden and everpresent, as if it were on a mission, will never be beaten out of him.

The city succumbed to the war mere months later, and Jack only ever visited once, ages, decades, later, to reaffirm himself that all the beautiful historical buildings, the museums they’d visited, the churches and the parks, had all crumbled to dust under the weight of the crisis, or worse yet, become the lairs of an evil there was no burning out.

“ _If_ we go there,” he tells Jesse after everyone else has said their part, and only the two of them remain, both equally bitter, though hope flickers in McCree’s eyes at Jack’s words, “ _if_ \- it’s gonna be the only chance we’re getting. You know that.”

“I do,” he nods, grim, barely tearing his eyes away from the briefing computer, the lines of his face rigid with furious determination. “We can’t let him play with us like this, though, Jack, right.”

“Right,” he nods, and then, searching for something he knows is already there, only waiting to become vulnerable, uncovered, in Jesse’s eyes, “kid. Be sure of why you’re doing this. It ain’t healthy to dwell on a fool’s hope.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hanzo,” Jack says simply, and catches it, _there,_ the uncertainty. _I’ve seen the way you look at him - the way you’re around him._ “Watch your heart,” he shrugs, “he just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to-”

“You know nothing about him,” Jesse surprises him with how quickly he retorts, “and I don’t want your advice. Let’s just focus on the mission, alright?”

“Alright,” Jack says.

_Just don’t let the people close to you become your mission, because more often than not, you end up broken over hearing one stupid song, and the sentiment you’d spent all those years despising will threaten to snap your neck._

 

-

 

He wakes up to a blinding white, bright, brighter than anything he remembers seeing lately, and it makes his head throb something fierce - slowly, bit by bit, the high-pitched whine in his ears subsides, and through his tears of pain, he manages to concentrate somewhat, recognize his surroundings. Or the general feeling of them, anyway, the clinically sparse walls, the faint scent of disinfectant, the electric murmur of machines unseen and unknown.

He isn’t lucky enough for this to be a hospital, so a lab it is, and he only wonders how many of the aforementioned machines he himself is connected to at this very moment.

There is a great weight pressing down on his chest, his lungs burning as if he has survived drowning, and soon he realizes it isn’t just the ache holding him in place - strapped to the bed, ah. A classic.

He senses movement, but he simply cannot respond in any other way beyond turning his head slightly - a door on the far side of the dim room slides open, and a man dressed in white enters, immediately notices Hanzo’s waking state, and mutters a few words of confirmation, presumably into his headset.

“It’s just nutrients,” he reassures Hanzo when he struggles at the sight of the needle administering a clear fluid into one of his - numerous, it turns out - IVs, and Hanzo scoffs at him.

“Tell me, does doing... that tire you out? The dragons. The exertion on your nervous system is quite severe, but then again, his nanotechnology is still rather experimental, to say the least, maybe there was an unprecedented reaction, right, that would make sense...”

Hanzo notices, as he numbly watches him mumbling to himself, seemingly engrossed in his numerous charts, how young he is, someone no doubt plucked out of a promising career by Talon’s forces... Hanzo grunts dismissively, this time at himself. What does it matter. The world is no longer black and white, these days it is not difficult to find all sorts of people working for all sorts of causes, unexpected as the combinations might be.

He realizes he is, above all, hungry - he doesn’t know how long he’s spent here, unconscious, at their mercy, but he does know he will need sustenance soon, an IV drip of questionable contents hardly an acceptable replacement.

“The boss will want to see you now,” the Doctor announces impassionately, “try not to do the dragon... trick again, it might drain you completely. Good luck.”

What an odd thing to wish to your enemy. Hanzo watches him leave, then proceeds to take note of the room. Something must have gone wrong - he thinks he remembers the full force of the dragons being directed at Reaper, hears his anguished shriek resonating still, and yet...

“ _Sleep well?_ ”

He is suddenly _there,_ as if materializing from thin air, and Hanzo grunts - it’s as if there’s a fist squeezing his innards, as if a part of him _responds._ Not particularly fond of the fact, he can still clearly recall... _ingesting,_ for the lack of a less disgusting term, the smoke, and wonders if a part of it lingered behind...

“Given the circumstances,” he retorts weakly, but no less bitterly.

“ _Well, you will be delighted to know that your rescue party is on its way. Honestly, like a pack of dogs following a scent._ ”

Hanzo’s whole world sways, and he itches with the _urge_ to sit up,move about, do _something._

“They’re coming,” he exhales.

“ _Indeed they are. Very predictable, my god. But then again, if it’s the cowboy running strategy these days, I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised._ ”

 _All this time,_ Hanzo realizes with a clarity that only comes with having your brain bleached of any real comprehensive thought, _you weren’t taunting Morrison. You were setting a trap to catch another mad dog._

 _I was there_ , he recalls McCree smiling bitterly, one warm night that now seems centuries ago, _I saw it firsthand. Funny, huh? Believing in someone that way._

All. This. Time. God, Hanzo feels so incredibly _stupid._ But then again, how could he have known? Connected the dots? He hasn’t been with them long enough, only heard about the past through vague pieces of stories strewn together, little facts and tidbits, hardly putting together a comprehensive image... Still, he feels like he should have. He should have.

Reyes was once McCree’s teacher, a father figure in every possible sense of the word, probably... You go after the weak link, always find the one sore spot that’s lasted all this long. _Sentiment. So easy to infect. Brought to your knees over keepsakes._

“You knew,” Hanzo accuses him, and the mask hovers, expectant, “you knew all this time, that he would survive, that he would come after you.”

“ _And now you know as well. Quite simple, isn’t it, when you think about it. You’re still missing one crucial fact, though. But I suppose that can be forgiven. You’ll see it eventually._ ”

“See what?” Hanzo demands, and he can see Reaper gearing up to answer, but he is cut off even before he can truly begin, by the alarm blaring, only an echo somewhere far off, but reaching them quickly.

“ _Oh! This should be exciting,_ ” Reaper chuckles, the deathly white of his mask illuminated by the aggressive red of the emergency lights, and then he’s gone, disappearing from the room quicker than he came, and Hanzo is left on his own.

“ _Kuso. Kuso._ ”

Swearing helps, he finds, as he struggles in his restraints, an unnatural panic spurring him on - they’re here, and they should be anywhere _but_ here, and he is _stuck._

The entire building is coming to life around him, he can hear the faint hurry of footsteps in the distance, shouted orders, and he knows that if he doesn’t manage to intercept, warn his people, then...

Something is happening here that none of them have accounted for, a part of the plan no one has been able to see, something far beyond squabbling over past hurts, and sentiment, and one stolen guitar. Now if he could only _get free of these blasted restraints..._

Oh. If the straps coming undone on their own isn’t an ominous sign of things being terribly wrong, then he doesn’t know what is.

He lies utterly still for a moment, heart tolling like a bell, listening - against all odds and expectations, the click of his metal soles on the floor doesn’t jumpstart another alarm, or send a dozen armed men barrelling into the room to intercept him.

He tears out all his IVs, unsticks every single connector he can find, sending the machines beeping frantically; stands up, gauging his strength. Slightly faint, but his legs carry him just fine. An ache to his chest still, like he’d run a long distance in freezing cold weather, but he finds he can move without a problem.

His attire is less than elegant, nothing but a generic grey hospital gown held together by a few flimsy strings, and he has no weapon either - a quick scan of the room yields nothing of use, and so Hanzo stays low, and makes his way out of the room, lab, whatever it might be, completely unarmed and unprotected, and a great deal confused.

The corridor he finds himself in is completely empty, red lights blazing repeating dashes on the dark metal floors and walls, and he breaks into a run - can’t really even be sure where he’s going, but staying in one place is hardly a good idea.

He hears a dull clang, more yelling - up front. There is a staircase, and a door open at the top, and since he can’t seem to find his bearings, completely incapable of telling where in the facility he is, he pursues the noise - happens upon yet another empty corridor, and yet more shouting.

It’s like he’s playing catch - whenever he thinks he’s gotten closer, he is greeted by the sight of yet more emptiness behind every corner he turns, yet more taunting from ahead. He has no earthly idea how large the lair is, no idea which floor he is on, no exit strategy, no weapon... For all he knows, he might still be lying on that table, drugged into oblivion, and only imagining all of this. It’s certainly strange enough to warrant that worry.

He finds a larger room, also abandoned, rows of tables and low benches - must be some sort of communal... _cafeteria,_ the silly word presents itself, and he scoffs. Clearly even Talon _does_ eat, contrary to what Reaper would have him believe. Reaper... well, he must be _somewhere,_ and it isn’t unlike him to appear behind Hanzo’s shoulder when he least expects it. He really _should_ find a gun, even if it’s just a forgotten fork...

Something catches his attention, and he stops by one of the tables, raises his hand tentatively - his index finger leaves an unsteady trail in the thick layer of dust covering the table. A dining room, just for show then? But no, now that he thinks about it, even the first time he came here, he wasn’t met with much resistance. The security system gave him a good chase on his way out, but he never actually _saw_ anyone beyond Reaper himself, and a handful of goons, and now the strange young doctor tending to him earlier...

His speculations are cut short, however, when he hears a sound that is entirely too familiar, even far off, the deep, thrumming sigh of a sonic boom with a very particular aftertaste of the ground underneath his feet quivering the slightest bit - Agent Zaryanova’s particle cannon.

Blood coursing quicker through his veins, he breaks off in a sprint - that was above him, perhaps several floors, but he is close, so close... Which is also where the defenses are. He almost doesn’t see the first turret manning the hallway he runs into, until it showers him in bullets - he only so manages to evade his untimely death, and while the turret tears the wall shielding him to smithereens, he searches frantically for a maintenance shaft, anything that would allow him to move out of sight. There were many, when he first came here...

He climbs into one eventually, the hot air hitting him like a slap in the face, but at least he is relatively safe, and everything resonates here - the shouts are still there, but he realizes, after some more laborious climbing, that they are too familiar. His people, not Talon. His people, in trouble.

“Stay on top of them! Push forward!”

His heart soars nevertheless, when he recognizes the voice as that of Agent Pharah’s - with her skills, she is no doubt leading a full offense team, and the sounds of battle confirm that, as does the visual Hanzo soon gains, coming up on a railing with a stern drop below it, into a large warehouse-like room, where a handful of familiar figures are attempting to push back a force of... what are those? They look like outdated battle omnics, but clearly not outdated enough not to give the Overwatch squad a run for their money.

Very quickly, he tries to make sense of the situation - there’s five of them, Fareeha and Zarya dealing the heavy damage, with Lena and Mei-Ling supporting with their comparatively quicker attacks, and Lucio defending from the sidelines. There is the unmistakable blue glint of Agent Vaswani’s teleporter dancing in the distance, in the corner of the vast room, and the enemy forces seem uninterested in that for the time being, which is... yes, which might be Hanzo’s best bet.

But first, capturing the attention of his teammates without putting them in danger... Which, of course, means redirecting the danger to himself. He assesses his route, sends a wordless prayer for luck, and kicks the vent open, sending it flying forth and clattering on the floor below, successfully capturing the attention of the omnics.

“Cover me!” he shouts, and prays his prosthetics haven’t been messed with, as he lets them weather the brunt of the fall, not a second to spare, somersaulting forward, gaining speed, evading gunfire, until he has found cover behind the metal crates on the far side of the warehouse...

“Woah! That was incredibly stupid!”

That’s Lena, appearing by his side in a literal flash, eyes large, weapon trained.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Hanzo smirks, allowing himself a moment to catch his breath, leaning on the nearest crate, “nice to see you too, Agent Tracer.”  
“You’re okay!” she exclaims happily, “hey, guys, we found him! No, yeah, I know!”

“Where are they? Where’s the rest?” Hanzo demands.

“No, listen, I know!” Lena seemingly ignores him, “what do you want us to do? No, we’re coming after you!”

“What’s going on?” Hanzo demands.

“No, yeah, I get it - fine! Fine! Ugh,” she huffs, both of them ducking as the bullets fly a bit too close for comfort, before the rest of the team manages to regain the upper hand. “They’re... Morrison and Jesse, they’re trying to go after him. Telling us to retreat, take you home-”

“No. No, they mustn’t. Did you bring my bow?”

“Uh, yeah, we got it, but listen, you’re not exactly in the shape to-”

“There’s a teleporter, right?” Hanzo barks, “where does it lead to? Can we go after them? _Where_ is my bow?!”

She stares at him mutely for the fraction of a moment.

“There’s a rendezvous point at the roof, we have a jet on standby, but...”

“Good. Give me the comm, please.”

“But...”

“All of this is one big trap, Agent Oxton,” Hanzo forces some calm into his voice, “he wanted all of you to come here, _all_ of you, and I have reason to believe that it isn’t to let all of you walk out again. Now _please,_ give me access to the comm channel.”

 

It is nothing like the countless simulation they’ve run together - Hanzo explains the situation as best he can, yells at them not to proceed, and still they don’t listen. He gathers his immediate teammates and rushes after them, his heart pounding, McCree’s voice ringing in his head. He had sounded angry, more furious than Hanzo ever remembers hearing him, and was the first to dismiss him when he suggested retreat.

_So ready to reveal your weaknesses._

He doesn’t care if the others are following him - the uneasiness drums at his skull, an unceasing drone, and he knows none of this is right, none of it. They shouldn’t be here, the resistance shouldn’t be this sporadic, _all of this_ should be going differently...

“Brother.”

He almost trips over his own feet at the sight of Genji, waiting on the other side of the teleporter path that Agent Vaswani had created for them, and in his hands, Hanzo’s bow.

“Genji...” he exhales, and all his relief and his exhaustion overcome him then, and he staggers forth, Genji’s hand quick to shoot forward and support him.

“There will be time to talk, later,” he tells Hanzo firmly, pressing his bow into his grip, “let’s go.”

And so they go, side by side, matched for pace, and Hanzo attempts to explain the situation as he sees it, to Genji and McCree on the other side of the comm channel as well, but he doesn’t think the gunslinger is listening anymore. Stopped checking in some time ago, the gruff, shouted orders of Jack Morrison the only confirmation that they really even _are_ still alive, and then...

“ _Fuck. Jack. There._ ”

“Do not engage him!” Hanzo’s heart skips a beat, speeding ahead, “don’t!”

“ _Careful, kid,_ ” Morrison replies, “ _watch your-_ ”

And then nothing but radio silence, the grating whisper of a severed connection, and the frantic beat of Hanzo’s heart to match its rhythm.

They hear it then, a bout of chaotic gunfire, like someone dropping their rifle, and the entire group freezes.

“ _Athena’s confirming some sort of loading bay ahead,_ ” Winston announces over the comms, “ _packed with omnic lifeforce. Be careful._ ”

“Let’s spread out,” Fareeha assumes the role natural to her, “I take my team, we go in straight. I want a defense team finding an alternate route. Hanzo, Genji - up above. Sniping, last minute resort.”

“Understood,” Genji nods, and they separate from the team, quickly finding yet another ventilation shaft, leading forth.

“We should be met with resistance,” Hanzo remarks, climbing inside after his brother.

“I know. Let me engage, keep your distance. Provide cover.”

He says it with concern unusual for him, but Hanzo knows he’s right - the time to talk will be later.

 

It’s too easy - that’s what sticks with him. It’s like watching some sort of a strange movie, only a bystander. The almost bodily relief and... and _joy_ at seeing a familiar hat and red serape, dissipates as quickly as it came when he also sees Reaper there, and they are all forced to watch. About a dozen different weapons trained on one enemy, but also at Jack Morrison who, for some reason, sees it fit to _engage_ , and chat. One enemy, and an entire squad of them, one blink of an eye.

Another blink, and the world comes crashing down, and suddenly they are not the overwhelming force anymore, but rather are being overwhelmed. _Packed with omnic lifeforce,_ most certainly.

But still.

Hanzo keeps track of his brother, delving into the fight, and he keeps track of McCree, following him around with his arrow, sniping at any omnic getting too close for comfort, and he _thinks_ he keeps track of Reaper himself...

Too easy.

Amari emerges from nowhere, nodding to him, scope against arrow, one sniper to another, and he doesn’t know what she puts in those bullets of hers, but he does see the nod between her and Morrison. Does see the shining blue pellet hitting Reaper in the back, and thinks, _no use, it’s going to go straight through him..._ Until it doesn’t. Until smoke turns man, jagged edges turn solid, and there’s a body on the ground.

_Too easy._

It shouldn’t be happening like this. Hanzo follows in a daze - they return through the teleporter met with minimal resistance, and he watches as the team enters the jet, Morrison carrying a dark sagged body over his shoulder... Someone is talking at him, Genji probably, explaining how they’d planned this, how it was even possible, but Hanzo isn’t listening.

No, he can’t tear his eyes away from Jesse, standing still, watching with a grim determination, his hand still hovering over his gun now back safely in its holster... His face changes, spreading into a smile, when he sees Hanzo approaching, but it never quite reaches his eyes.

“Hey. You okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Hanzo exhales, then, not entirely sure why, perhaps because everyone else is preoccupied and it doesn’t even matter, perhaps because the steely resolve behind Jesse’s kind eyes worries him, he puts his hand on the cowboy’s forearm. “Thank you for coming after me, but...”

“What?” McCree inclines his head.

“All of _this_ ,” Hanzo jerks his head, encompassing the entirety of the past couple of days, “the things he’d said to me... He wanted you to come here. _You_ , specifically. It’s too easy, it’s... Something is wrong. Something is very...”

He hears Jesse’s voice coming to him as if from a great distance, as if he’s underwater - muffled by the rising hum in his ears, his head. He tastes smoke. _I know it’s not the most elegant solution, but a man has to watch his back. I have to make sure..._

 _Entirely_ too easy.

The last thing he sees is Jesse, the fear in his eyes, his arms reaching forth to intercept his fall, his last thought a ridiculous _at least I’ll be landing soft,_ and then he is, in a tradition he seems to be following rather diligently lately, out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh okay here we are! Sorry for the delay on this one, it proved a bit difficult to write haha  
> Very flashback heavy! And Hanzo has quite the habit of fainting at very inopportune moments doesn't he. I promise this will all end up making some modicum of sense at some point... I hope. And I hope that you guys are enjoying it! :D


	6. Chapter 6

This time around, he wakes naturally, and the pain is not even worth mentioning, compared to what he remembers sustaining. Remembers - that's a good thing, surely. And recognizes his surroundings, too, and certainly recognizes the figure of his brother, perfectly poised in a simple meditative position on the bed next to his.

" _ Otouto _ ," Hanzo rasps, his throat very much betraying him - when he coughs to clear it, Genji's visor lights up a cheerful green.

"You're awake! Hello!"

"I am," Hanzo sighs, relief washing over him like a wave, "could do with some water, though."

Genji watches him mutely for a moment, as if he's still expecting him to disappear, then jumps off the bed in one fluid movement.

"Of course! Here. I'll call Dr Ziegler, she's going to want to come check on you..."

"Genji."

"Yeah."

Water dribbles down Hanzo's chin as he gulps it thirstily, and he tries not to grieve over the times long gone, when he could just look in Genji's face and actually see an expression that would tell him something, anything.

"What happened? How long was I out? Did Talon-"

"Everything's alright," Genji nods, shifting from one leg to the other, as if he's a bit unsure of how to handle himself around Hanzo for the time being, "we came back yesterday, you slept through the night. And a chunk of today.

Considering we've got their Commander in custody, Talon have been surprisingly quiet so far."

So they did manage to capture Reyes - it wasn't just a fever induced dream.

"How?" Hanzo exhales, "I've seen what he can do. If he's staying in one place, it's because he chooses to, Genji, there's something-"

"Settle  _ down, anija _ ," Genji interrupts him almost fondly, one hand on his shoulder to keep him seated, rather than springing right out of bed, "it's not that simple. There's a... what do they call it? A serum, I think? Something that Dr Ziegler was developing, not exactly with Reyes - Reaper in mind, but it seems to have worked. Temporarily, anyway. It's all biochemistry and nanotechnology, don't ask me."

Hanzo watches him wave his hand in an almost playful dismissal, and his frown only deepens.

"He shouldn't be here. We should have killed him when there was even a sliver of chance. This is what he has wanted all along-"

"You sound exactly like Jesse," Genji laughs, and Hanzo huffs an offended scoff, averting his gaze.

"This isn't right," he maintains.

"It's going to be fine, brother. You should rest some more. I'll go find Dr Ziegler-"

"No."

"No?" Genji chuckles.

"I need to see him. I need to talk to him," Hanzo demands resolutely, tugging the blanket off, realizing too late that apparently, someone saw it fit to relieve him of the part of his prosthetics that isn't permanently melded with the muscle tissue of his legs, when he wasn't conscious enough to have any say in the matter. He can still walk, of course, but he'd rather no one saw him like this, least of all Genji, whose gaze he notices lingering.

Shame heating his cheeks, he covers himself back up, slumping back into his sheets.

"Take it easy," Genji says gently, "he won't be going anywhere for now, and neither should you. They went searching the base, apparently Talon have abandoned it completely just like that. They should be back soon, I'll make sure to stop by and tell you what they said at the briefing..."

"I'd like to attend," Hanzo says firmly, "and I need to speak to McCree."

"Ha!"

"Quiet! It's important."

"If you say so. At any rate, he went with the scouting team. Like I said, they should be returning sometime today."

"Hm," Hanzo grunts, a twinge disappointed for no real reason.

"Is it alright if I go get the Doctor now? I'll return to check on you later, I just have to..."

"Go, go," Hanzo sighs, and scowls when Genji lingers. "It's fine. I'll sleep some more."

"I'll tell Jesse you have something extra important to talk to him about, when I see him, eh?"

"I would appre -  _ alright _ . Go away."

Genji's kind laughter echoes in his ears long after he leaves, and Hanzo finds that sleep eludes him now. Slowly, laboriously, he reattaches his prosthetics, put aside along his bow, he discovers with some relief. Dr Ziegler arrives in the meantime, and regales him with a generic description of his condition - miraculously, he didn't sustain any lasting injuries during his captivity, and while she does have some concerns when he describes to her what made him pass out twice in a row, his stomach turning yet again when he recalls the suffocating taste of rot, she only promises to run some blood tests, and rewards him with a clean bill of health, more or less.

Feeling a bit steadier on his feet, figuratively speaking and otherwise, he makes his way through the base to his dormitory - everything is almost ominously quiet, and the handful of teammates he meets along the way explain that this is due to the aforementioned sweep of the facility they'd rescued him from.

"I should have acquired better intel.That base is a maze," Hanzo confesses glumly, currently sating his ravenous hunger thanks to Lucio's tamales, and the cook barks a laugh, handling the sizzling pan with deft jerks of his wrist.

"You were busy being kidnapped, dude," Lucio reminds him, "we're just glad you're in one piece."

"You are, aren't you?" Hana chimes in, young, large eyes scanning him cautiously.

"How do you mean?" Hanzo frowns, tugging his fresh change of kyudo-gi in place somewhat self-consciously.

"Well, you know," she postulates through the straw of her horchata, "it's Talon. You sure they didn't, like, perform horrific experiments on you?"

Hanzo glares at her, but it's obvious she doesn't mean to offend - simple childlike curiosity. He sighs.

"Not really. If you see me gearing up for a surprise assault, you have my permission to put me down."

She snorts, and it fortunately has the desired effect of distracting her enough to steer away from this uncomfortable topic, Lucio and her soon starting a rather lively debate about this heist movie or that, allowing Hanzo to excuse himself and seek the solitude of his room for the time being.

Aside from a certain dizziness, half his bruises and half the painkillers Dr Ziegler had equipped him with, he feels fine, and he even manages some light yoga to put his mind at ease - it is still racing a hundred miles a minute, residue adrenalin, only confirming his suspicions. The team's assault of the Talon base went entirely too easily, too quick, too simple, for it to be anything but by design.

The idea of Reaper confined somewhere within the Watchpoint fills him with a dull, cold sort of fury, but it's as if everyone is skillfully skidding the topic, from Genji to Dr Ziegler, each more reluctant than the other, from Lucio and Hana to Winston, who dismisses him outright and tells him to wait until the briefing after the rest of the team returns. All in all, Hanzo decides, it's probably for the best - all he succeeded at was getting needlessly captured, and didn't even come back with any relevant information, aside from a number of unfounded suspicions, and a nagging hunch... When Athena finally announces the rest of the team returning, long after sundown, he is suddenly almost too ashamed to leave his room, and go meet them.

He has never seen Jesse this outwardly furious - he jumps out of the truck first, dismissing everyone's questions by ordering them to the nearest briefing room. He only spares Hanzo, who, to be fair, is keeping a bit of a distance, away from the rest of the group, a fleeting glance, before some struggle happens in his face, always so honest, so open, and he turns away. Just this once, the bile rising at the back of Hanzo's throat has nothing to do with his memories of Reaper's torture, and he slinks after everyone only highly reluctantly.

"Basically, it was a dead end," Jesse starts, truly cheerfully, "they left nothing behind, every server wiped before we got there, not a paper forgotten. Honestly, it kind of looks like not much of them were ever there in the first place. We have a rough outline of the base, and it's massive, it's going to need a bit more surveying, but as far as we can tell, it probably isn't what we were looking for."

"There has to be something," Dr Ziegler counters, "it's Talon, surely they're storing something somewhere dark and unreachable."

"Radiation scan revealed nothing out of the ordinary," Winston brings up a 3D model of the base up on the holo projector, "it's just several floors of empty labs, and even emptier storage units."

"There's another possibility," Hanzo pipes up, feeling slightly nauseous when everyone's attention turns to him. "What I saw of the base... I never met more than two, three people in there, and moved between about four different locations, at best. Compared to the actual size of the building..."

"What are you saying?" demands Morrison.

"The defenses were always fully automated, yes? No people. Barely any omnics."

He can sense McCree glaring, but he dares not look him in the eye - can't say why, it's just a feeling of... uneasiness.

"That's right," Morrison confirms, and perhaps it's just that Hanzo is so used to Genji's expressionless face, that he now feels like the blood red visor is squinting at him.

"I've seen what he's capable of," Hanzo continues, repeating himself, but it needs to be said for everyone to hear, "if he got captured, it's because he chose to. It wouldn't be that implausible to construct a ruse the size of an entire base to throw us off, would it?"

"So, what?" Amari scowls, "it was only ever him in that bunker? Nobody else?"

"Why the hell would he do that-"

"Monaco," McCree exhales, and Hanzo does summon the courage to look at him, and sees the bitter realization in his eyes.

"Come again?" Morrison inclines his head.

"Monaco. It was a mission I ran with him, shortly before... A long time ago. Like a bait and switch, but with an entire building. It was just me and him and two more guys, tasked to guard this... like a dirty bomb, if I’m remembering this right. Huge building, just the four of us, and a literal army at our doorstep. We fabricated radio chatter, booby trapped every single floor, made them think there was a whole squad of us. Managed to take out twenty guys like that, while we smuggled the bomb off site, and Reyes contacted HQ for a strike.”

"Bloody hell," Lena's eyes are wide, mirroring pretty much everyone else's astonishment.

"So," Hanzo nods, "it is not that unlikely that he would utilize his old tactics to catch us off guard. The longer we keep him here, the more danger we put this entire Watchpoint in..."

"That's still up for debate," Winston pinches the bridge of his snout.

"Not really," Jesse growls, nodding at Hanzo, like they're supposed to be in on something together, "come with me."

" _ Where _ are we going?"

"No, Jesse, we agreed, no engaging him until-"

"I don't give  _ a shit _ , Ana," McCree bangs his fist on the table, earning him a number of eyebrows arched in quiet surprise, "we've been letting him sit pretty for far too long. I want some answers, yesterday. And if I find out he's just here to give us more trouble, I'm tearin' him a new one, and none of you can say a word about it, alright?"

And with that, he storms out of the room, leaving them staring mutely for a moment, Amari sighing heavily.

"He's going to do something stupid," Lena points out.

"Undoubtedly. Can you go after him?" Ana grumbles, and it takes Hanzo a moment to realize she's talking to him.

"I don't... I'm hardly the ideal candidate," he sputters.

"Quite the contrary," she dismisses him sternly at first sight, but he thinks he spots the gleam of something more suggestive in her eye. He doesn’t care for it.

"Just stop him from drawing his gun, if at all possible," Morrison waves his hand wearily, and Hanzo glares for a moment - something about their lackluster attitude towards McCree frustrates him, but that is to be explored later. For now...

" _ The prisoner is kept in Laboratory B, Containment Unit number five _ ," Athena's voice guides him as he marches down the corridor, " _ you now have the proper clearance to enter, Agent Hanzo. _ "

"Thank you," Hanzo mutters absentmindedly, trying to remember his way around this part of the Watchpoint - it is the domain of Dr Ziegler, the scientific labs once used by many now serving only her and Winston, mostly, and as such, Hanzo has never really wandered here that much. No reason to, until now.

"McCree?" he calls, feeling somewhat foolish, surrounded by ominously empty laboratories, room after dark room.

"Over here."

He's actually a tad surprised to receive a response, and hurries ahead to find the cowboy pacing some sort of surveillance room, all the screens no doubt designed to broadcast a live feed from the laboratories now switched off, save one.

"Hello," Hanzo greets Jesse somewhat awkwardly, and peers at the screen, curiosity getting the better of him - the figure seated in the corner of the containment unit is so laughably... simple. Just a man in a hood sitting down by a wall.

"You were so angry," Hanzo notes quietly, "I'm surprised you aren't in there with him."

"I was about to," McCree admits, almost bashfully, "go in and paint the walls with him, y'know? Kinda lost my grit on the way. I don't know."

He still won't stop pacing, agitated, smoking furiously, eyes glued to the screen as well.

"Sent you after me, did they?" he remarks, not sparing Hanzo a single glance, "put the rabid dog on a leash?"

That phrase is so out of place Hanzo takes a moment to process it, watching the gunslinger quietly, gaze darting from him to the shadow of the man in the cell.

"Is that what he would say about you?" he shoots blind, and it is obvious he has hit his mark, the way Jesse's shoulders tense up.

"All of them," he says quietly.

"What?"

"You were there," McCree turns to him abruptly, the change of topic entirely too violent, "you know he's up to something. Right?"

"I... don't think he would let himself get captured this easily unless he had a very good reason, no," Hanzo agrees carefully, and Jesse huffs his agreement.

"Why does he choose to stay?" Hanzo offers, coming closer to the screens, to stand by Jesse's side, "he could have broken out a dozen times by now."

"Can't," Jesse shakes his head absentmindedly, now gnawing at his thumb thoughtfully like a child, "look, don't... It's all science. Ask Angela, if you want an explanation that actually makes sense. All I know is he's stuck, and it isn’t a pretty experience for him. Do you know what she told me? She thinks that he’s in some sort of constant state of decomposing. Every fiber of his being falling apart and trying to stitch itself back together at the same time.”

“Sounds implausible. And painful,” Hanzo comments, eyes never leaving the hunched figure on the screen.

“Yeah,” McCree shrugs, “Angela calls it an experiment gone wrong, but I could tell she was intrigued. Wants to take his blood, study him like some sort of specimen. I for one just wanna know that I can safely punch him in the face. That my fist won’t... go straight through him, or something.”

Hanzo chuckles, carefully - difficult to determine whether it will offend the gunslinger, or not. But he smirks as well, before sighing heavily, scratching the back of his neck.

“This is messed up.”

“I agree,” Hanzo nods, “do you want my company in there with him?”

McCree looks at him abruptly, opening his mouth with a hasty answer, but then Hanzo sees the same pain he’d observed earlier that day when Jesse first arrived with the transport - difficult to identify, but not difficult to attribute to something Hanzo himself has said, or done. Not a nice feeling.

“That’s mighty kind of ya, but there’s some stuff... Some things that we’re probably going to end up saying...”

“I understand,” Hanzo interrupts him firmly, swallowing his own sudden disappointment, “it’s personal. I will stay here, if you require assistance.”

“You’re sweet. If you see me punching him, though, let me have it, yeah?”

“As you wish,” Hanzo laughs, and McCree offers one last smile, somewhat uncertain, before casting a final glare at the screen, and marching out the room.

Hanzo waits somewhat anxiously for him to reappear, and only realizes he’s been quite literally holding his breath when that does finally happen, McCree marching into view on the screen, halting a good distance before the cell. There is no sound, but he does say something, and the prisoner notices him, and his reaction is miniscule, acknowledging his presence merely through sitting up a tad straighter - other than that, his face is concealed behind that mask still, and thus it is impossible to gauge his reaction any further.

Hanzo can’t shake the urgent need to be there as well, to ask Reaper  _ his own _ questions, but all of that can wait - it is much less important than whatever Jesse has to say to him. There’s history there, Hanzo knows, vaguely anyway - he would never pry on the details.

McCree is pacing now, left and right, long impatient strides, and even through the grain of the screen, Hanzo can see his hand fidgeting with his gun, toying with the trigger, twirling it in his hand, pocketing it, only to cradle the hilt still...  _ It’s the nerves. Need an outlet, y’know? _

Hanzo knows.

“How is he doing?”

Amari takes him by surprise, he is somewhat ashamed to admit, but he doesn’t let it show, simply crosses his arms, stepping aside to let her take a look at the monitor as well.

“Only just went in,” he offers sternly.

“I see.”

Silence reigns, and Hanzo manages to steal a fleeting glance or two at her. Much like him, she lets her face betray nothing, but he can tell from the way she follows McCree’s every movement, like a hawk - she is just as concerned.

“He was never going to do anything radical,” Hanzo feels the strange need to explain, “he wasn’t ready to go in at all, at first.”

“I figured,” she nods, gaze never leaving the screen.

“And yet you sent me after him.”

A miniscule smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, but she doesn’t answer him, noting instead: “It’s finding out someone you cared about came back from the dead. Does strange things to us all, doesn’t it?”

He wants to retort,  _ how should I know, _ but then he realizes, and frowns at her instead.

“I can hardly liken my brother to the poorly resurrected husk of a traitor,” he offers instead, and some flash of disagreement appears in her expression for a moment, but then she merely shakes her head, averting her gaze.

“None of us are clear yet on what went down in Switzerland,” she offers simply, no emotion in her voice, but she still makes him feel like he’s overstepped some invisible boundary. “And we all want answers. Perhaps some of us simply have... different ways of acquiring those.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” Hanzo scowls, “I was  _ there, _ he told me in my face that he wanted all of you to play into his game, that he would  _ bring you to your knees. _ That he wanted revenge.”

“Yes,” she closes her eye briefly, “but did he ever tell you why?”

“I don’t think that...”

The abrupt movement on-screen catches their attention, and interrupts Hanzo - McCree drives his fist against the glass of the cell wall, and it is obvious that he’s shouting something, but the man inside remains disinterested, sitting perfectly still all this time, and it’s impossible to tell whether he’s speaking too...

“Should we pull him back?” Hanzo asks, and the obvious concern in his own voice doesn’t please him one bit, but she chooses not to comment.

“Give him time.”

But Jesse doesn’t seem to need  _ time _ \- he turns on his heel rather out of the blue, and marches away from the containment unit. Something else intrigues Hanzo, though - he can’t help but stare at the man left alone in the cell, and it is impossible to recognize anything, of course, with the mask he’s still wearing, but unless Hanzo is mistaken, there is some sort of tension to his shoulders now. Serves him right, as far as he’s concerned.

“So, about that beer we were talking about the other day - oh. You’re here too.”

The first part of that sentence is clearly meant for Hanzo, but then Jesse notices Amari as well, and if he looked despondent before, he’s a picture of perfect misery right now.

“Nevermind,” he groans, already turning to leave, but Ana intercepts him.

“Hold on. What did he say to you?”

“Nothing relevant. Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t care about  _ relevant, _ ” she says sternly, “even the smallest detail could-”

“What?” he snarls, and there is no apparent emotion to it, miles away from swearing and driving his fist on the table earlier, “we’re gonna find out some great mystery, something that would explain why he’s suddenly back in our lives, like nothing ever happened?  _ All of you _ fucking appearing outta nowhere like the last six years didn’t happen, like you didn’t  _ leave us behind. _ You have  _ no idea, _ Ana. No idea what it was like.”

And with that, he strides out of the room, leaving them behind, and Hanzo feels decidedly out of place - like he’s just witnessed something he certainly wasn’t privy to. For a moment, just a second or two, he considers going after McCree, but then, what would be the point, really? It’s not like he’d really have anything to contribute - not like the two of them are in the habit of... sharing. No, if the cowboy is anything like Hanzo might think he is, he needs to be alone now. The last person he would want to talk to right now is Hanzo, if his uncertain attitude towards him as of late is any indication.

But then, Hanzo  _ has  _ only been awake for a couple of hours, and things are still... somewhat confusing. Not knowing what else to do, he retreats - Amari looks like she might want to say more, but Hanzo doesn’t think he should be the one to hear it. He avoids company for the rest of the day, and from what he can observe, McCree does the same.

The prevalent mood for the next days is a quiet sort of despondency, and the lockdown doesn’t help with that one bit - the second the UN finds out who is in their custody, they request the highest caution, understandably so, and it comes with the unfortunate side of them being confined to the Watchpoint for the most part, frantically monitoring for any sign of Talon mounting a rescue effort.

The radio silence keeps them all on edge, and there is a distinct lack of... any kind of leadership - those who should naturally assume the function don’t seem to be in any way eager to do so, and every single briefing ends inconclusively, often in an argument or four. Hanzo himself can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t have anything meaningful to contribute, that he shouldn’t participate at all - others have a different idea, apparently, Amari quizzing him to no end about every single encounter with Reaper, while Morrison listens in, sometimes obviously, sometimes less. Hanzo prefers not to recall, though, and the more often he is forced to talk about it, the more the burning knot of anger changes into a dull weight of annoyance. He wishes it were done with.

He once thought he knew what Reaper wanted to achieve by coming back here, but no one has any luck extracting any sort of info out of him - McCree doesn’t return to him, and everyone else is dismissed out of hand.

The only person who doesn’t try is Morrison, of all people, and Hanzo doesn’t even spare that fact a thought until later that week, all his bruises mostly healed at this point, taking advantage of the fact that his sleeping patterns differ so vastly from any of his teammates’, making his way into the training range very, very early in the morning.

“ _ Welcome, Agent Hanzo, _ ” Athena greets him at the command console.

“Good morning. Unlock Range Two, please? I know it’s early.”

“ _ Range Two is currently in use. If you’d like, I could prepare a modified version of your routine in Range One. _ ”

“No, that won’t be necessary...” Hanzo waves her off absentmindedly, before he realizes what she’s  _ actually _ saying. “Used by whom? At this hour? I... suppose I don’t mind sharing the space.”

“ _ Training Range Two is currently tasked at full capacity. Commander Morrison is utilizing the VR to construct a full-immersion projection. _ ”

Oh. Hanzo enjoys those kinds of trainings, though there are a precious few of them these days - getting to enter lovingly modeled maps, more or less corresponding with real life, and test his abilities in a perfectly safe and detached setting is one of the perks of this place he never thought he’d...

“Hold on, did you say  _ construct? _ As in, build one from scratch?”

“ _ Correct. _ ”

“Is that even possible? I thought you were the architect,” Hanzo points out, somewhat distantly, staring at the door leading to Range Two, as if he might suddenly develop x-ray vision and catch a glimpse of what’s going on inside.

“ _ I am. However, Commander Morrison requested a number of training videos that were once used in the original Overwatch training programs - an obsolete version of virtual reality, but with my help, he is on the verge of constructing an entirely new one. _ ”

“Oh,” Hanzo hums, and then, a thought completely out of nowhere, “is it open for spectating?”

“ _ The Commander has restricted access to all personnel except for himself and Agent Amari. _ ”

“Yes, of course he has. Hmm. Will it be available for everyone to use at some point in time, then?”

“ _ Unknown. Commander Morrison has requested that no one interrupt him. Perhaps it would be beneficial to your training routine if you came back at a later time, Agent Hanzo. _ ”

Maybe it  _ is _ the early hour, but the AI sounds a bit... bitter to Hanzo’s ears.

“You don’t approve of whatever it is Morrison is constructing in there,” he takes a wild stab in the dark.

“ _ It is not the purpose of my assigned role to pass judgment that way. _ ”

“But you still do not like it.”

For a long moment, there is nothing but silence, the triangle of Athena’s logo blinking at him mutely from the screen, until he is on the verge of apologizing.

“... _ Commander Morrison requested that I keep the existence of this construction from Winston, among others. My orders clearly state that the security of the Watchpoint is an interest all residing here must share, and be informed of at all times. _ ”

“And you think  _ that- _ ” Hanzo points vaguely in the direction of the training range, “-would have a negative impact on the security of this place?”

Another moment of silence, contemplative this time, if Hanzo is any judge of that, until the AI seems to have reached a decision.

" _ See for yourself, Agent Hanzo. _ "

-

He remembers the lights, and the music, and the crowds - Reyes had towered over everyone, plain clothes and a solitary handgun strapped to his side, so unlike him, and he navigated the people and the commotion with an impressive ease.

"Dia dos Muertos," he'd said, "gotta honor the dead. Pay attention."

It had been  _ his _ home turf, but he still made sure McCree felt included, made him spend several days concentrating on relaxing rather than obsessing over strategies and training scores, made him look at faded murals on church walls, and makeshift altars in the streets, explained everything about the importance of  _ offrendas _ , sugar skulls and marigolds... Talked so effortlessly to people Jesse was sure he'd never even met, and played guitar with old men singing sitting in picturesque Dorado squares, and it had been... good.

Years after Switzerland, Jesse would still set out a candle for him - gotta honor the dead. And at some point, he had no trouble thinking of him as such - dead and gone, the image of the man who taught him so much, preserved almost pristine in his memories. Finding out that he'd survived, turned into... that, was like a punch in the gut, a visceral reminder that in their line of work, miracles never happen the nice way.

He tries once, just once, to face him, to talk to him, and it is enough. Goes about as well as one might expect.

"You haven't changed one bit,  _ vaquero _ ," the mask of white stares at him, unflinching and expressionless, and he feels sick to his stomach.

"Can't say the same about you. What the hell happened to you?"

It's an honest question, Jesse still feels so lost in the events that led up to... all of this, but the mask doesn't seem to be in the mood for honest answers.

"Oh, you know, this and that. Died a couple of times, what can I tell you."

"Uh-huh. Why are you here?"

He's incapable of even looking straight at him - not because the sight is particularly terrifying, contrary to what all the half finished dossiers and erratic witness statements would have you believe, but mostly because it's... It's too hard, he can't help but imagine the face behind the mask.

"I believe it's because Dr Ziegler finally managed to undo at least some of her mistakes, and I am no longer decomposing into mush as we speak."

"Cut the crap. You're after something."

"Of course I am," the mask takes him aback somewhat, "it's good to be back."

And so on, and so forth. Jesse feels like a stupid teenager again, frustrated at his own inability to gain any sort of intel - he might be too close to this, after all, he decides shortly after blowing a fuse and marching out of there, massaging some feeling back into his hand, having driven it so harshly against the glass of the cell. He absolutely hates the thought, but if he isn't careful, he sees the wicked grin behind the mask, as if it were real, too easy to imagine.

Others try their luck in the following days, to no avail. Amari spends the longest in there, and he can't help it, she makes it really difficult for him not to be angry with her. He didn't exactly mean to... spit at her like that, but it's like everyone expects him to just adjust, just be fine with all the change, with all the people he'd buried suddenly cropping up out of nowhere.

The tension is palpable around the Watchpoint after that, and Jesse is selfishly almost glad that he isn't the only one on edge. He keeps to himself, and everyone seems to understand, and steer clear - he even ends up arguing with Fareeha, always a good, rational companion, when she starts to talk some sense into him regarding her mother, and after that, each new encounter brings with it the possibility of pissing him off further.

He foregoes most of his training, too, and only starts feeling vaguely guilty several days after the attack, socializing hitting an all time low in the lounge that evening, Jack's and Reinhardt's argument carrying over from their recon run earlier that day, resisting even the younger members' attempts at dispelling the tension. They all scatter, and Jesse makes his way towards the range, where he hopes to empty some rounds into the targets, before emptying a can of beer or five.

Hanzo is there, but not in the capacity that Jesse would expect - instead of preparing his bow or going over the accuracy ratings as usual, he sits at a console by the wall, and seems fully immersed in... whatever he's watching.

"Howdy," Jesse waves at him, with no particular passion, and the archer's reaction surprises him, to say the least - Hanzo flinches like a spooked cat, swirling around to look at him, while his screen goes black, nothing but Athena's telltale logo remaining.

"Hello!" Hanzo blurts out, as if he's all but accusing McCree of turning up in the first place, "you're here."

"Sure am," Jesse scowls at him, "everything, uhh... alright?"

"I... Yes. You?"

Jesse can't help but feel oddly guilty - and oddly angry with himself. Hanzo and him haven't spoken, not properly, ever since they snatched him back from that godforsaken lair, and it's partly... well, wholly, really, Jesse's own damn fault. Still, he can't shake the feeling that there's something strange about the archer today, and he used to be kind of good at telling what bothered him... Oh, right. Because they're so close, so attuned to each other. Better stop kidding himself.

"Yeah, nah, I was just about to go shooting for a bit, is all."

"Oh," Hanzo nods, looking from the screen to Jesse, back to the screen, "...may I join you?"

"You wanna...? Heh, don't take this the wrong way, Shimada-san, but I ain't exactly gonna dazzle ya tonight."

"Oh?" The ghost of a smirk.

"I was mostly just gonna shoot blindly at something and then get a beer when I run out of bullets."

"Sounds perfect," Hanzo smiles at him, and Jesse thinks it might be the first genuine smile he's seen in a while, period.

He's forgotten that around Hanzo, things rarely tend to turn out the way one would expect them to. Twenty minutes into the frankly miserable training session, Jesse eyeballing most of his shots while Hanzo sits quietly on a crate nearby, seemingly perfectly content to simply observe, Athena sees it fit to update his accuracy rating. It's dropped the entirety of half a percent, and Jesse lowers his hand, perfectly poised to keep firing, and swears under his breath. Hanzo crowns the list easily now.

"Well, there ya have it," Jesse grumbles, "easy win."

"Give me that," Hanzo shakes his head, and when Jesse squints at him, he adds, more softly, motioning to his gun, "let me try."

"Wh- you got some nerve! Y'think you can do better?" Jesse guffaws, and Hanzo is frowning at him, sure, but there's an unmistakable gleam of... something, a good mood, simple and nice, in there, too.

"I simply think I want to try," the archer slash aspiring gunslinger replies with a deceptively innocent smirk, and Jesse continues to scowl at him for a while, before conceding with a sigh.

"You know what, go ahead. Score's on a decline anyway."

" _ Do you wish me to sign you out, Jesse, and sign in Agent Hanzo? _ " Athena chimes in.

"That won't be necessary," Hanzo declares.

"Okay, but if he misses on purpose, don't count that, Athena!" Jesse wags his finger in the general direction of the computers.

It feels weird, kind of unnatural, handing Peacekeeper over, and Jesse watches like a hawk as Hanzo turns it over in his hands - at least he seems to treat it well, gentle, almost reverent.

"There's a button for reloading at the bottom of the... oh, you got it," Jesse attempts to guide him, ending up only supplying the bullets, Hanzo taking the canister from him curiously, Jesse observing somewhat proudly as he checks over the intricate system of holding all six bullets in place, only to whistle, amazed, when Hanzo manages to load the gun nigh perfectly.

"Whoa, there ya go. Now, when it comes to aiming..."

But Hanzo is way ahead of him, assuming a very controlled stance, and firing all six shots in quick succession, Athena's holographic target lighting up an accusatory red.

"Hey, jeez, you gotta warn a man before you fire his pistol!" Jesse half laughs, squinting to check the marks. "Four outta six, not bad! Not bad at all. Come on, let's try again. If you watch the recoil, you might actually hit  _ anywhere _ near the center next time. You've got the eye for it."

This is good. This takes his mind off Reyes, off Ana and Jack, of everything suddenly turning so sour. Hanzo needs his posture fixed, and demands Jesse demonstrate, which, eventually and somehow inevitably, turns into Jesse asking for permission to manhandle him a little bit, correct his slacking elbow, remind him that firing a gun isn't like shooting an arrow - Hanzo is used to collecting all energy in his core, pulling powerfully, locking his shoulders, while Peacekeeper requires, and expects, more momentum. The recoil is something Hanzo handles the easiest, Jesse thinks, spending a bit too much time looking at the powerful curve of his shoulders, muscles tensing every time he fires another blast.

"You don't have to aim so high," Jesse reminds him, daring to put one hand on his forearm, gently, giving him enough room to move away, "this ain't an arrow you're firing with, you don't have to account for the angle. It just... goes. Woosh."

"Woosh," repeats Hanzo, deadpan, chuckling when Jesse snorts a laugh.

"Yeah! Go for it. Here."

The skin of Hanzo's wrist is warm, entirely too soft, under his touch, and contrary to Jesse's expectations, he doesn't recoil, actually doesn't move an inch, except to accommodate for Jesse's guidance, slightly changing his grip, twisting his wrist inward.

Six shots, six perfect hits - Hanzo hums appreciatively, and tingles dance up Jesse's spine.

"There ya go. Got it all figured out now, damn."

"Don't worry," Hanzo smiles, "I think I'll still keep with the bow."

"I'm kinda relieved, not gonna lie to you."

His heart jumps when Hanzo reaches for him, their fingers threading, but it is only to pass Peacekeeper back over to her rightful owner.

"Thank you for letting me try," Hanzo says, never quite turning to face Jesse, no matter how close they're still standing, "shall we get that beer now?"

The warmth smack in the middle of his chest can hardly be attributed to the workout at this point, and Jesse is more than guilty enough of purposefully letting their arms brush before they put some distance between them.

"Sounds good," he nods, "but you'll excuse me if I keep an eye on you, just in case you, y'know, get kidnapped again when I'm not looking."

Hanzo's laughter might honestly be the prettiest sound he's ever had the privilege of hearing, but he suspects he's going to have to keep that to himself for a while longer.

And maybe, it really can be this simple, he marvels - maybe all he needs to do is forget for a bit, and get a damn beer, and find things to laugh at, rather than get angry over. Mysteriously resurrected former commanders and evil merc groups on their tails be damned - besides, Hanzo doesn't care about any of that. He's new still, in the grand scope of things, and as such, McCree thinks he might actually allow himself to feel at ease around him.

It's a realization that hits him right around the time that he catches himself staring again, Hanzo swallowing the first gulp of his beer after they toast to nothing in particular, rolling the taste on his tongue for a bit beforehand. Jesse's mouth is suddenly completely dry, and so he resorts to drinking more himself.

"Listen," he blurts mostly out of nowhere, the two of them having settled into a secluded corner away from the main lounge, no other company anywhere in sight, "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry. I was an idiot."

Hanzo glares at him over the rim of his bottle.

"That's a rather broad statement. What exactly are you apologizing for?"

"Eh, well, y'know," Jesse rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, flinging his boots up on the nearest chair, "I didn't exactly... I kinda feel like it was my fault, alright? The whole... you getting 'napped... business."

"That's absolutely ridiculous."

He says it so sternly, so firmly, that Jesse can't but blink mutely at him for a moment.

"No, yeah, but still..."

"Reaper used me as a pawn," Hanzo tells him calmly, gaze unwavering, to a point where Jesse squirms a tad uncomfortably. "He told me as much. The sole reason for his kidnapping me was to draw you out, from what I understand."

"Which puts me at fault-"

"No."

"...No?"

“Now  _ you _ listen,” Hanzo counters, uncharacteristically urgently, “that man clearly still thinks he holds power over you - all of you. Do not let him believe that for a second. The fact remains that  _ he _ is the one in custody, not any of you. He might want you to believe he has some ulterior motives, and I do aim to help you find out if there are any, but for now... simply let it be. If there is one thing I have learned since joining your organization, it’s that things rarely turn out the way you’d expect them to around you people.”

Jesse gapes at him mutely, before leaning back in his chair, letting all air out of his lungs in one huff.

“Wow,” he comments.

“What?” Hanzo squints.

“Nothing, naw, it’s just... That might have been the longest speech I’ve ever gotten from you, is all.”

Hanzo’s look is indecipherable, but unnervingly unwavering. Jesse drowns his worries in more beer.

“...Yes,” the archer concedes at last, “which is why we should stay silent now, and drink more.”

Laughter bubbles up in his throat without him even registering it, and Hanzo is laughing, too, and.... Through all his worrying in the past days, all his anxieties and fears resurfacing, Jesse has only longed to do one thing, and this might very well be it.  _ Simply let it be. _

And so he does.

 

-

 

He is being haunted. It’s like an echo of a song, the murmur of a conversation from behind closed doors, something nagging on the back of your mind for days, unwilling to come into the light. It follows him around the place, a whisper, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up - behind every corner, in every shadow, he’s afraid of catching a glimpse of it, the mask of white, laughing in the face of death. Laughing at him.

He doesn’t go down there - can’t, yet - but the pull is stronger and stronger, and he hates it. Ana attempts to brief him several times, tell him what he said, but Jack doesn’t need her to clarify. It’s always riddles, and no matter how weak that makes him, he knows he wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

But he’s spent years searching, years looking for an explanation, and unfortunately, the memory of a man captured in that one dark room several floors below him might be his only source of any sort of answers.

And so, he builds. He needs to make sure. Athena is reluctant at first, all the way through it really, but at this point, pulling rank actually becomes effective, rather than an annoyance. She gives him access eventually, and he spends an inordinate amount of time simply sifting through the old training vids, rather than actually augmenting them.

When he starts at last, it’s much easier than he would have anticipated. He remembers all of it, almost too well. It starts appearing in his dreams again, the arches of glass and metal, the beautiful suspended walkways. The crowds, the vast auditorium. The warning signs.

He implements all of it, ignores Athena’s questions. Only tells Ana, and withstands her glare pretty well, he thinks.

Eventually, he also manages to convince the AI to work on it in his absence, and the ping comes late at night one day, sleep eluding him, or perhaps it’s him evading it - either way, a good distraction.

“ _ Commander Morrison, _ ” she alerts him in the middle of his weapons check-up, “ _ the initial VR synchronization is ready. Would you like me to prepare the map for you to test out? _ ”

He’s spent enough time working with her that he can damn well recognize the disapproval in her computer-generated voice.

“That would be good, Athena, thanks,” he grumbles, putting his rifle away, “I’ll be there in five.”

The Watchpoint slumbers around him, and he walks the empty corridors with no rush - he can’t help but listen to the quiet. Some deep and secure part of him, tucked too far away for anyone to see, wonders what Reaper is doing right now - can he sleep? He’s seen him writhe and snarl whenever Angela introduces the serum - is there pain? How much of him is still...? No. Those thoughts don’t belong here, not right now.

Besides, his ruminating is interrupted by a far off sound, anyway - he stops, listens in. The plucking of a guitar, unmistakable.

“Stupid sleepless cowboy,” he grunts, circles around back to arrive at the lounge from up high - he doesn’t mean to interrupt, only pass through unseen, anyway.

The soft melody carries, almost as if it’s taunting him, before stopping abruptly - Jack stops as well, listens, but there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on... Hm.

He sees a glint of some faint light coming in from the far corner of the vast room, probably utterly abandoned save for Jesse... Not just Jesse.

He can’t make heads or tails of the situation at first, too far away to see, but then he stands on the railing above the room, and there on the other side, by the window overlooking the loading bay, McCree has his arms full of his favorite archer, and it becomes quite clear why he stopped playing so abruptly just now, the guitar sandwiched between them. He fumbles to put it away, while also not quite wanting to let go of his partner, and Jack almost scoffs out loud and ruins it.

In here, of all places. Right now, of all times. But then again, McCree has always been reckless, hasn’t he - pursued the things that immediately satisfied him, rather than any sensible, long term goals...

In a flash, Jack remembers, nothing more than a glimpse of a time long past, laughter and big, warm hands finding their way under his shirt, the glass of the large window cold against his exposed skin,  _ shit, Gabe, not here, not here, you idiot... _

He turns away, leaves as silently as possible.  _ Good for you, kid, I guess. _

 

The training ranges are equally as silent and dark as the rest of the base - fortunately no more people to walk in on - and he sighs, waking up Athena’s terminal with a tap.

“ _ Evening, Commander. Are you ready to begin? _ ”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose,” he sighs, “patch me in.”

“ _ As you wish. Would you like to select a codename for your creation? _ ”

He gives it some thought - closes his eyes, sees it as clearly as if he were already back there.

“Nah, just call it what it is,” he decides. “Switzerland.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh hey everyone, sorry for the long pause on this fic! As I've stated several times before, I did indeed run into a bit of a slump with it - it was my first fic for this fandom, back when I was barely even in it, and my headcanons and opinions have really developed since then, up to the point that I almost stopped feeling happy about this lil fic. But I do have an ending in mind, and a bunch of you have sent me really encouraging comments and messages, so here it is! I feel like I gotta mention I adore Gabriel with all my heart, I really do, and I have many other things in store for him in future instalments - I'm just gonna do my best to salvage his character here :'D And I promise we'll find out more about that kiss right at the beginning of the next chapter >:3  
> Thanks again for all the support, you can always come chat with me at mckuree.tumblr.com! <3


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